


Close For Comfort

by Leryline



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Bottom Oikawa Tooru, Cheating, Double Penetration, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NSFW, Phone Sex, ROMANC E AHGHGNJD it's so gay, Romance, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Spitroasting, Threesome, also: don't cheat on people irl my dudes it's not cool. not cool., but look it's integral to the plot ok, it has a happy ending i promise, iwaoi - Freeform, like legit please DO NOT, really sinful but great, turning a oneshot into a multi-chap out of spite: a novel by me, ushioi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 61,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leryline/pseuds/Leryline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa Tōru has always seen his future with Iwaizumi Hajime - solely, utterly, completely. After all, Iwaizumi is his pillar, the only person he needs in the world.</p><p>...right?</p><p> </p><p>[or: Ushijima Wakatoshi comes in and fucks everything up, as usual, but Oikawa has never given in easily, and neither has Iwaizumi, for that matter.] <b>[disclaimer in notes]</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯ i had to make my contribution to the ship that brings me life
> 
> ALSO CAN I JUST MAKE THIS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR: NEVER **EVER** CHEAT ON YOUR PARTNER IN REAL LIFE. EVER. THAT SHIT ISN'T ACTUALLY HOT AND CAN FUCK PEOPLE UP, PLEASE DON'T DO IT. This is fiction and is NOT real, so it shouldn't be taken as an example. But then again most of you have more than 3 brain cells and know that - but for those of you who DON'T, please know now that I absolutely do not condone cheating outside of a fictional setting. Hell, most of the time I don't even condone it WITHIN a fictional setting. This fic leaves a bitter taste in my mouth but it's too popular for me to take down and I worked too hard on it. Remember: fantasy remains safe and harmless, but the moment it turns into real-life actions - that's bad, and is neither safe nor harmless.

_“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”_

_―Federico García Lorca_

* * *

 

Oikawa has never seen Ushijima smile like that before. He’s seen the shy smiles, the gentle ones, when he stops in the street to pat a dog or to help someone push their broken-down car off the road. Ushijima doesn’t smile often, and when he does, it’s strange. He never sees Oikawa staring dumbfounded at his upturned lips, he never sees when Oikawa catches himself staring and fidgets with the collar of his shirt. Oikawa isn’t used to seeing him smile, though now he’s become somewhat accustomed to it, and sees it more often once he learned how to look.

But he’s never seen him smile like this.

* * *

Ushijima’s eyes are dark; so dark, in fact, that they’re almost black in colour, and they’re far too close to Oikawa’s, and yet he can’t find it in his heart to feel uncomfortable about it. There’s a pressure in his chest but he can’t be sure if it’s because of Ushijima’s hand braced against it or the erratic gallop of his heart. The locker room has been empty for at least half an hour.

The smile had been a quick one, a flash of quicksilver stained as brown and as warm as his eyes, but it had been sharp, and it had been hungry. It was the smile of a high school virgin on their first date, when they sit in the front seat of their boyfriend’s car with ice-cream dripping down their arms. But this isn’t a date and the only things on Ushijima’s arms are red lines drawn by Oikawa’s fingernails. And those eyes certainly aren’t the eyes of a virgin.

Iwaizumi is probably waiting for him at the station. He’s probably checking his watch and juggling milk bread in one hand, wondering where Oikawa – his captain, his _boyfriend_ – has gotten off to. He would never expect him to be pressed against the locker room wall by another man, trapped in a minute-long silence with nothing but smouldering eyes and tingling skin.

Oikawa always thought he hated Ushijima, and now he finds that it isn’t remarkably different. It all bubbles in his throat, all the rage and the grudges, but instead of wanting to punch Ushijima square in the jaw like other times, he finds his eyes anchored on his lips and the glint of sharp, even teeth beneath. Instead of wanting to yell and cry and stamp his feet in frustration, he feels the inconceivable urge to gravitate closer to him, right until he can slip his hands up under his shirt and over the hard ridges of his muscles –

“Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa sing-songs in a breathy little voice, stepping one finger after the other up the front of Ushijima’s jersey. “Aren’t we a little close for comfort?” He watches Ushijima’s brow furrow a little, lips opening as if to speak. He doesn’t, not at first.

“Oikawa –,” The name leaving his lips send shivers all over Oikawa’s body; he finds it horrendous, but at the same time it makes him want to wrap himself right around Ushijima and fuck hard and fast against the wall. He puts a finger to Ushijima’s lips, unable to stop himself from pushing it past his teeth into his mouth. It’s searing, Ushijima’s tongue slick against his fingers, and Oikawa draws in a shaky breath, withdrawing his fingers before he does anything stupid with them. If Ushijima is confused, he doesn’t ask any questions.

A hand reaches down to slide up the inside of his thigh and Oikawa parts his legs to accommodate it. Ushijima’s other hand presses against the base of his throat as he leans in to kiss the corner of Oikawa’s mouth, pricking his lips with his tongue in a fashion Oikawa finds far too skilled for someone like Ushijima.  The hand slides up the leg of Oikawa’s shorts and his hands move to fist in the front of Ushijima’s jersey. He pulls him up tight, causing Ushijima’s hand to jerk up over his hip. “Ushiwaka-chan, this is bad, you know. I have a boyfriend.” He brings his finger up to his lips, pink tongue darting out to lick at the tip in a way so obscene it makes Ushijima inhale sharply, gut lurching, shifting his face a little closer. There’s a hand on Oikawa’s hip with strong fingers and blunt nails and he can feel the searing tips of those fingers pressing to the slip of skin between his shorts and his shirt, right over the fading scratches that Iwaizumi had etched into him. He isn’t thinking about Iwaizumi now. All he can think about is how good those broad, calloused fingers would feel elsewhere. He tilts his head a little so that if he were to move an inch or two closer he’d be able to fit their lips together perfectly; he can feel Ushijima’s breath on his skin, he can _smell_ him, the scent of deodorant and earth and sweat, the smell of Ushijima, and in that moment it’s the thing he craves the most. “Ushiwaka-chan…” he says again, this time with no trace of a smirk. The hand not at his mouth moves to trail fingertips over Ushijima’s high cheekbone, and he watches those dark eyes blink once, twice. His head tilts back a little as Ushijima’s hand moves up to curl around his throat, a sigh slipping past his teeth, eyes fluttering shut at the feel of strong fingers on his jaw. Ushijima has him crowded against the wall and each passing second he’s closer, closer, breathing harder, hands tighter, and Oikawa’s fingers still clench the front of his jersey, refusing to let him pull back.

It isn’t so much of a kiss as it is a unanimous gasp, the sudden snap of years and years worth of tension and rivalry and rage, released all at once, and it floods over Oikawa’s tongue like liquor, his mouth falling open and Ushijima’s tongue delving past his teeth. He kisses the same way he plays, Oikawa thinks, though he can’t bring himself to hate it. In fact, it turns him completely boneless. Before he knows it his sigh turns to a moan and his arms wind around Ushijima’s neck, hands fisted in his hair to try and press him closer, teeth snarling, tongues pushing and cajoling in the most delicious dance Oikawa has ever experienced.

A knee is thrust between his legs and Oikawa instinctively rolls against it, the hard muscle of Ushijima’s thigh grinding against the apex of his legs. He sighs the ace’s name against his lips, licking like a cat, moaning breathlessly as Ushijima’s mouth moves to his neck and he bites down, sucking hard enough to make Oikawa’s skin tingle. _I’m gonna get in trouble for that,_ he thinks, but he is quickly distracted as Ushijima’s lips meet his again and the hand drops from his neck to tear up jersey up and over his head, flinging it to the floor. He whispers into Ushijima’s mouth again as he pushes his hands up beneath the fabric of his jersey, feeling the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles as they writhed beneath his touch. When Ushijima peels his jersey off Oikawa’s breath catches in his throat. All he can do is stare.

“I –,” the words catch in his throat as Ushijima kisses him again, fingers slipping under his waistband and down over his hips. “Do it,” he breathes with swollen lips as Ushijima pins his hips to the wall with his own. They’re both deliriously aroused; it sits thick and swampy around them, hot, heavy, infuriating. This isn’t want – this is need. Abject, carnal need. “Fuck me here, right against the wall.”

Ushijima bites his jaw, growling against his skin, and Oikawa shivers at the noise. Ushijima’s biceps flex beneath his hands as he’s hauled up against the wall, legs wrapping around the ace’s waist. His body is impossibly hot, burning wherever Ushijima’s skin touches his, and the noises he makes can barely even be called _moans._ They rut their hips together, the rigid line of Ushijima’s erection grinding against Oikawa’s ass. Oikawa’s hands are still in his hair, wrapping his long fingers in the strands, kissing him again and again and again, all tongue and teeth and begging moans disguised as curses. Oikawa presses his lips to Ushijima’s cheek, scraping his nails over the back of his neck, begging for him to just _hurry up and take him_. He isn’t sure how much longer he can hold out, and he doesn’t want to cum just from Ushijima rutting up against him like this.

Oikawa’s fingers find their way into Ushijima’s mouth again, gaze fixed on those narrow, dark, gleaming eyes that smouldered like coals and sent cold fingers walking up his spine. He grazed his teeth over Ushijima’s jaw as he pushed his fingers deeper, and as Ushijima’s tongue wrapped around each one before Oikawa pulled back his now sloppy fingers to slide them down between his legs, pushing first one finger then another inside himself, trying to stretch himself out as quickly as he could in his thirst for something else, something bigger, something far more tempting. Ushijima, using one arm to hold Oikawa up, pushed down his shorts enough to release his own cock, and the moment Oikawa laid eyes on it his mouth pooled with saliva and desperation. He wanted to take the time to swallow it right down his throat, to taste each vein with his tongue, to reduce Ushijima to a mess. But there’s no time, not now. So he has to make do.

Ushijima kisses him again, slipping in a thick, rough finger alongside Oikawa’s, then another, until Oikawa abandons his own fingers altogether and leaves Ushijima to finger him open like a virgin until there are tears in his eyes and he’s begging, _pleading_ , scrabbling at Ushijima’s muscular shoulders moaning, “Please, please, put it in me, I can’t wait any more, I need you to _fuck me_ –!”

With a heavy grunt in his ear, Ushijima locks eyes with Oikawa, pressing the head of his cock in, sinking it deeper and deeper until Oikawa is in tears of relief and Ushijima is seated inside him fully. Oikawa grasps his face and pulls him into another deep, long, leisurely kiss, Ushijima breaking away every so often to suck a mark somewhere. Oikawa wants him to. Each time he’d met eyes with Ushijima cross-court he’d thought of what it would be like to be utterly destroyed by him. To have those eyes, narrowed in a smirk, rake over his body. To have those hands all over him, to be marked, to be wrecked. It’s something he’s never admitted he wanted. He presses his tongue to Ushijima’s, silently pleading to be ruined and debauched over and over again until he couldn’t even remember his own name or feel his own body.

The first thrust is slow and deep, more of a grind than anything, but it has Oikawa seeing stars nevertheless; the second thrust is harder, Oikawa’s back slamming against the wall as Ushijima’s hands move down to curl around the curve of his backside, Oikawa’s legs tight around his waist. Oikawa tries to muffle his moans in Ushijima’s neck, fingernails dragging down his back and leaving angry red marks in their wake. “Fuck me harder, harder,” Oikawa gasps in his ear, hands moving back to his hair, lips crushing together in a snarling kiss. “Y-your cock is s-so big –,”

Hearing Ushijima grunting and groaning in his ear, moaning deep and husky, is unbelievable. It makes Oikawa’s head spin, and even though he’s crushed between Ushijima and the wall he’s being absolutely consumed by ecstasy. “Fuck me more – Ushiji – a _h_ \- !”

When Ushijima moans Oikawa’s name in his ear Oikawa’s back arches away from the wall and he pulls Ushijima’s face into his neck where he can feel teeth and lips and where Ushijima begins to cultivate new marks over old ones that were made by somebody else. One of his hands reaches between the to curl around Oikawa’s cock, thumb pressed over the slit; they gasp against each other’s mouths, their minds melting until neither of them can really tell whose body is whose, hips and hands moving erratically. “Your cock is so good, oh my _God_ , it’s the best, it’s –,” Oikawa cries, voice muffled in Ushijimas neck.

“Oikawa –,”

“Me too – oh – _oh_ –,” Oikawa can barely breathe as Ushijima’s pace increases and he’s in a situation he’d never think he’d be in: being fucked within and inch of his life against a wall by Ushijima Wakatoshi. The realisation sends tingles all over his body. “I’m –,”

Ushijima doesn’t mean to cum inside Oikawa, not that either of them particularly care – Oikawa’s eyes flicker back into his head when he feels Ushijima’s cock swelling and rubbing inside him, pounding against his prostate again and again, sending his mind reeling and his muscles slack. Ushijima bites down on his shoulder, hard, and tears prick Oikawa’s eyes at the pain; before he knows it he’s cumming into Ushijima’s hand, hips bucking and trying to cram more of Ushijima’s cock inside him, kissing him sloppily and desperately, craving him more than he’s every craved anyone before in his life.

Ushijima sets him down on legs shaking so badly he has to help Oikawa to the bench to sit down. Ushijima goes to the sinks, taking a handful of paper towel and dampening it as Oikawa lies down on the bench, exhausted. Silently, he returns to Oikawa and wipes down every inch of him, ridding him of the sweat and cum and spit sticking to his skin. He cleans between each of Oikawa’s fingers, at the base of his throat, aware of Oikawa’s half-closed eyes watching him the entire time. They don’t speak, tongues sitting swollen and awkward in their mouths.

“I should go,” Oikawa says eventually, after he changes and has watched Ushijima’s back as _he_ changed. There are angry red lines all up his spine and Oikawa bites back a proud little smile. If he expected Ushijima to apologise, or to thank him, or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do after something like that – he was disappointed. Ushijima just nodded at him, silently, before taking the back exit out of the locker rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it could have been a steamy little one-shot, but no, here we are on the angst train again. hold onto ur socks kids.  
> the key thing to remember here is that while things really suck for a while it has a good ending for everyone, so u endgame-ship-iwaoi people, please sit down.
> 
> A BIG THANK YOU and lots of kisses to those of you who leave kudos and (especially) comments/feedback! i promise u i read them ALL and even if i don't reply i promise my heart is still tender for each lil word u write in that comment box. if this was 2010 i'd give u cyber cookies but it is 2016 and i won't embarrass myself by returning to those dark times

_ “It doesn’t take tragedy or war to derail a man. It takes only a memory.”  _

_ ― Ali Shaw _

* * *

 

 

“Iwa-chan, you left without me!”

There’s a scoff from the other end of the line, Iwaizumi’s curled lip audible even to Oikawa.

“You just disappeared. What the hell was I supposed to do? Wait around in the rain for an hour and a half? No fucking way. I went home.”

Oikawa whines and kicks his shoe through a puddle in the gutter of the train station; it’s hot and humid and it’s still raining a little, and from where Oikawa stands leaning against a tiled pillar he can see tight-laced businessmen with black umbrellas sweating through their neatly pressed suits, or students shaking water from their hair at each other, laughing and splashing through the puddles as they go to catch their trains home.

“You abandoned me, Iwa-chan! Now I’m here sweating my beautiful face away –,” he fingers at his hair which has risen and curled even further with the humidity “– and you don’t even offer to come and pick me up. What kind of boyfriend are you?”

Iwaizumi chuckles from the other end of the line, breathless and exasperated yet somehow strangely fond. Oikawa fixes his collar a little, shifting the material to cover the dark, blooming hickey. He feels a little guilty. “You’re at a train station, dumbass. Where you catch trains. You can get the train home. You don’t need me to pick you up.”

Oikawa’s lip curls into a pout. “It’s only two stops! What a waste of money.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have dicked around for so long after practice. What were you doing, anyway?”

Oikawa feels a flush rise on his neck, right up to his cheeks. He looks down at his toes, casually crossing his legs at the ankles and he tries to forget that he’d just been fucked senseless against a wall by his arch-rival; no matter how hard he tries to think of a plausible excuse, his mind keeps wandering back to how good it had felt to be split open by Ushijima’s cock, and how Oikawa was still crammed full of his cum. He closes his eyes and bites back a shiver that threatens to tear down his spine. “Coach needed to run over a few things with me.”

He knows the smile in his voice is thin – his tone is too gentle, too understanding for him to be telling the truth but his mind just won’t _focus_ , not after what happened between him and Ushijima. The more he thinks about it the more confused he feels, and he reaches up to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Whoops, train’s here! Gotta go, see you later Iwa-chan!” Without waiting for a response he hangs up, a long breath rattling from his lungs.

He feels bad. Of course he does. Iwaizumi Hajime is more than just his boyfriend – he’s his _best_ friend, his friend from childhood, his foundation, his pillar. He’s been there for Oikawa all these years, unwavering, and then Oikawa goes and does _that_ – he feels guilty. Of course he feels guilty.

But at the same time he can’t forget how good he’d felt pushed up between the wall and Ushijima’s body, the heat of it, and even though he still feels the urge to sneer every time he hears Ushijima’s name, the thought of his broad, dark body and his fingers doing _those things_ to him makes his blood boil in his veins in a way he’s never really experienced before. He tells himself that it’s because he feels so hateful towards Ushijima; he can’t help but admit, though, that the man is a very, very good fuck. Oikawa hadn’t expected it.

He didn’t bring an umbrella and the rain isn’t drying from his skin or his clothes – thankfully the station isn’t too far from the Aobajōsai campus, so he isn’t too wet. It’s still uncomfortable, and he fixes his collar again as he makes his way towards the platform to wait for the train that will take him home.

As he waits he feels anxiousness begin to congeal in his stomach like an ugly clot; Iwaizumi isn’t stupid. He’ll notice something for sure. The more he thinks about how Iwaizumi would react to seeing the hickey, to finding the remnants of Oikawa and Ushijima’s exchange, the more he finds himself unable to breathe. The humidity suddenly seems completely unbearable, suffocating, wrapping around him like a wet cloth and drowning him. He clears his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and swallowing a little gasp at the sting from between his legs; even so, he finds himself smirking in satisfaction at the sensation.

 _You’re an asshole, Oikawa Tōru,_ he thinks to himself, sighing in defeat.

He’s fucked. And not in the good way, either.

The train arrives, pulling into the station with squealing breaks and glistening beads of rain still clinging to the windows of the carriages. It’s air-conditioned inside and Oikawa settles into a seat by the door with a sigh, waiting patiently as a few other students and mothers with young children board the train as well. There’s a group of girls from another school standing in a small group nearby, looking over at him and smiling small smiles with blushes high on their cheeks. He waves at them and they erupt into flustered giggles, their delicate hands moving up to cover their mouths.

He sits back as the train lurches into motion. It’s only two stops until he has to get off, but it’s time enough for him to have to himself and to focus on his own thoughts. As desperately as he tries to think up a solution – or how to fix the hickey or the bruises – or a proper excuse for his unexplained absence – the only thing he can think about is Ushijima roughly fingering him open, or the feeling of his teeth against the skin of his jaw. Oikawa can remember the feeling of Ushijima’s rough hand gliding up the inside of his thigh and how hot Ushijima’s breath had been against the crook of his throat and he really can’t think of anything else. He shifts his backpack in his lap, drawing in a shaky breath. The train draws into the first stop and Oikawa thinks how easy it would be to just go back for more, even if it meant sacrificing his pride and his dignity. And Iwaizumi.

To Oikawa, there’s something very disgusting and very arousing about that thought. The thought of crawling back and begging the man he hates the most in the entire world to pin him down and fuck his brains out until he’s nothing more than a boneless, oversensitive mess. Just thinking about it makes him feel horrified – he’d be tossing away all his pride, every last shred of his dignity, and he’d be giving something to Ushijima he’s never really given anyone else before. Sure, it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy Iwaizumi having the upper hand over him in bed sometimes, but this is different. Very, very different. And as much as it makes him feel disgusted and horrified with himself, he can’t ignore the pleasant shift in his gut.

He chews on his thumbnail, brows creased deep in thought. He would never sacrifice his pride like that. As much as Ushijima’s berated him in the past for it, he’d never sacrifice it, especially not for _him_. But the worst part would be losing Iwaizumi. The thought makes Oikawa feel so distressed that he has to stop himself from dwelling on it before he begins to feel sick. Before he knows it the train pulls out of the station and begins on it’s way again, and Oikawa chooses to focus on the _ka-chak_ of the rail lines and think about what had happened between him and Ushijima no more.

 

“Tōru, you’re late!” Oikawa’s mother calls from the living room as he lets himself into his house. He takes off his shoes and his jacket, shaking the water from his hair and calling out in apology.

“Sorry, I had to talk over some things with the coach. Do you need help with dinner or anything?”

“No, no,” his mother replies, getting up from where she’d been lying on the couch reading a book, going over to kiss his cheek in greeting. “You father took care of dinner, the sweet man! Oh, look at you, you’re soaked through. Go have a shower before you catch a cold!” With a firm pat between his shoulder blades she sends him off, watching her son go with a smile.

Oikawa hadn’t expected his parents to be home this early – he must’ve stayed out later than he thought. He’s glad, though – if he’d had the house to himself he would’ve been let alone with his thoughts, which is something he _definitely_ doesn’t want. Not until he can get himself in order, anyway.

Stepping into the bathroom, he begins to peel his clothes from his body. The sudden chill from the air-conditioning hitting his wet skin makes his skin rise, and he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror. There are bruises on his hips and on his thighs, angry marks on his arms, and that hickey on his neck stands out so much he shivers at the mere sight of it. _I definitely can’t let Iwa-chan see me like this!_ he thinks, distraught, as he fits his fingers over the bruises on his hips.

He tears himself away from the mirror to step into the shower, washing the sticky cum from between his legs and thoroughly scrubbing himself down. As he’s about to clean himself fully of Ushijima’s cum, however, he pauses, breath catching in his throat. _I want to keep it,_ he thinks as his heart begins to grow excited in his chest, his groin stirring with the startings of arousal. The thought comes suddenly, clearly, as though someone had struck the rim of a bell inside his skull. _I want him inside me._

He can see the faint outline of his reflection in the glass of the shower door as he reaches his hand down between his legs to graze his long fingers over his cock. It’s getting hard already, and all the memories of Ushijima fucking him, all the thoughts of what he wants Ushijima to do to him _again_ , come flooding into his brain all at once. He bites into the back of his hand to stifle a gasp as his hips arch into his touch. His body’s never ached like this before and he’s angry, so angry, that of all people it’s _Ushijima_ who has been the one to inspire such neediness in him. It makes him furious and disgusted and horrified all at once, and yet somehow it only amplifies his arousal and before he knows it he’s pushing two fingers back against his hole and feeling it yield completely against them, letting them slip in right to the knuckle. Oikawa hisses a little at the sting from where his skin must have torn when Ushijima had fucked him, but the pain is only a little and he discovers he kind of likes it more that way. Soon he’s adding a third finger, fingers working quickly over his cock, slick with water and precum. His fantasies are growing louder and they thrum in his ears like a second heartbeat; all he can think of is Ushijima being there in the shower with him, shoving those thick, rough fingers in his mouth or in his ass until he’s moaning and drooling. All he can think of is Ushijima’s heavy, sticky cock pushing into him and filling him with cum until he’s bloated and incoherent. All he can think about are those strong hands and those sharp teeth and the _strength_ , oh, the strength with which Ushijima handled him. Rough. Urgent. Oikawa needs to feel it again.

He comes with a strangled moan muffled by the cool tile wall of the shower, his body trembling like a leaf against his fingers. For a moment or two he’s worried he’ll slip and fall for the lack of feeling in his legs, but even though his knees are shaking he’s still able to stand. He’s masturbated before, but nothing could have ever compared to that. Oikawa stands there for a few moments in shock and horror, his chest heaving as he breathes, before he scrubs himself down again and _thoroughly_ cleans himself out.

 

Iwaizumi calls him that evening, after dinner. He always calls around this time – he has since they were in elementary school when they weren’t allowed out after dark. Oikawa’s lying on his bed, earphones clamped firmly over his ears as he flicks through his new copy of _Volleyball Monthly_. He looks up when his mother knocks softly on the door, holding out the phone to him. “It’s Hajime.”

He takes the phone from her, mouthing a _thank-you_ to which she smiles and shuts the door behind her after he leaves. Oikawa pushes his headphones down so they hand around his neck, bringing the phone to his ear. “Iwa-chan, so nice of you to call and check up on the boyfriend you abandoned.”

“Cork it, asshole, I didn’t abandon you. Like I said, if you hadn’t just mysteriously disappeared, I would have waited for you.”

“I could have gotten leukaemia, Iwa-chan! You know the rain isn’t good for my lungs.”

Oikawa can practically hear Iwaizumi rolling his eyes. “Leukaemia is cancer, idiot. You mean pneumonia. Besides, your lungs are fine. Stop whining.” Then, more gently. “You got home okay, right?”

“Right as rain, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa replies airily, admiring his own (rather quick-witted, he thinks) play on words. There’s still a decidedly heavy feeling in his chest at the sound of Iwaizumi’s voice, even when it is slightly distorted by the crackle of the phone line. There’s a silence between them, the only sound in the room the tinny reverberations of Oikawa’s music from his headphones. “Sorry for not telling you I’d be late.”

“It’s okay.”

Silence.

“Shit, I’ve gotta go. See you tomorrow, yeah?”

Oikawa jolts as though he’s been woken from a dream. “Yeah, absolutely. Are you taking me on a date, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi chuckles, and suddenly everything’s back to normal. Oikawa sighs and smiles in relief, fingering the base of the phone fondly.

“Might be. See you tomorrow, eleven o’clock sharp. Don’t be late this time.”

“Okay. Bye bye.”

Hanging up, he wrestles his headphones off, shutting off the music and flinging the magazine across the bed. Oikawa rolls onto his back and folds his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling with its little stick-on stars from when he’d been a kid. “I’m an asshole.”

He decides to shut off the lights and go to sleep before his thoughts catch up with him again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your feedback i appreciate it 100%. a few days ago my lecturer told me that porn is right down the bottom of the Literary Spectrum Of Respect and i just. shed a silent tear. but #yolo writing about people fucking is what i do best. [flex emoji x10]

_“Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour.”_

_―_ _Euripides_

 

* * *

 

 

Oikawa wakes up at nine o’clock the next morning. It’s a Saturday and the clouds have cleared up, revealing a crown of blue sky laced only by a few misty clouds that hang low on the horizon. It’s still hot, but thankfully the humidity has lessened to the point where Oikawa doesn’t feel like sweating the skin off his body. He showers, pulling on some clothes – he wears a high-necked shirt just to be safe – and heading down to stuff down some breakfast before Iwaizumi arrives to pick him up.

It’s easy to pretend that things are normal. It’s easy for him to sit down at the breakfast table with his father and help himself to a slice or two of toast, or to read the headlines on the front of his father’s newspaper. It’s easy to uphold casual conversation, to put on his shoes as though nothing had happened. He can look himself in the eye as if everything is normal. But he knows it’s not.

There’s still a very distinct weight hanging in his chest, like the heavy brass pendulum inside a grandfather clock. His heart feels like a lead weight, and yet at the same time feels weightless. Perhaps he feels guilty for not feeling as guilty as he _thinks_ he should feel – again, he decides it’s best not to think about it. Oikawa manages to convince himself that he’s _not_ trying to avoid the problem when he’s obviously doing just that. He won’t see Ushijima again, right? At least… not for a while. And the next time he does see Ushijima, he tells himself, he’ll be able to sneer in his face just like he always did.

Somehow it all feels like a bare-faced lie. Probably because it _is_ a bare-faced lie and deep down he knows that firstly, things are not normal, and secondly, that it’s very unlikely things will be normal ever again… at least not for a while. Not until he can rid himself of his own treachery.

“All you’re doing is betraying yourself,” he tells his reflection as he aggressively brushes his teeth. _Whatever. I hate Ushiwaka anyway. He’s just a huge stupid piece of meat. Idiot._ He’s filled with bitterness as he spits out the toothpaste, his features crinkling with distaste.

Iwaizumi comes and picks him up at eleven o’clock on the dot, just when he said he would. Oikawa opens the door and sighs at him, eyes dipping to the strong line of Iwaizumi’s clavicles. “If only you were this much of a gentleman yesterday, Iwa-chan.” He coughs for good measure, and Iwaizumi rolls his eyes in response.

“Take care of him, Hajime!” Oikawa’s mother calls from inside the house. “Make sure he keeps out of trouble!”

Iwaizumi salutes her and Oikawa hears her laughing as she goes back into the kitchen. He turns to Oikawa, brows pulled low over his eyes. “You need to get over yourself.”

Oikawa sticks out his tongue teasingly and hops down the steps past Iwaizumi to where his boyfriend’s car is. It’s an old car, but Iwaizumi had spent hours and hours cooped up in his garage working to make it look mildly presentable. Oikawa would go over and watch him, shirt tied around his waist and grease smeared over his bicep or his jaw. “So, Gentleman-san, are you going to open the door for me?”

“Fuck off.”

 _That’s my Iwa-chan,_ Oikawa thinks fondly as he gets into the car, Iwaizumi getting in on the driver’s side. He settles in comfortably, beginning to flick through the stations.

They go to a café near their high school campus, one that’s popular with teenagers and a lot of their classmates.

“It’s Hajime and Tōru! Over here!”

Oikawa drags his gaze from Iwaizumi to glance over at the café’s outdoor seating area and sees Hanamaki and Matsukawa waving at them from beneath an awning. He waves back and feels Iwaizumi shift beside him, then raise his hand in a graceless wave as well. They make their way over towards them, Hanamaki and Matsukawa leaning back in their seats with that elegant ease Oikawa has come to admire.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the two lovebirds. What brings you here?”

“Iwa-chan is taking me on a date,” Oikawa says, his voice arching high with mock-affection meant in the most affectionate way possible. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes (again) as the other two snicker and gesture to the two empty seats at their table. Oikawa immediately picks up the menu, reading over it pensively before spotting a milkshake he decides he’d very much like to try. Hanamaki and Iwaizumi begin to make idle conversation fitting for the slow, muggy heat of the day, and at one point Iwaizumi wipes his face on his shirt, frowning.

“Why’d you choose to sit outside? Why not _inside_ , like normal people?”

“We’re not normal people, Hajime, we’re far too cool to assimilate with the plebeians.” Matsukawa smiles thinly, his heavy eyebrows casting his gentle eyes into shadow. Oikawa sighs, getting to his feet and pulling his wallet out of his pocket.

“Since the old men insist on rattling on,” he says, “I’m going to go and get a drink before I die of thirst. Iwa-chan, do you want anything?”

Iwaizumi had already picked up the menu while Oikawa was talking, and so after a short pause he decides on a cappuccino, at which Hanamaki balks and demands to know how the fuck he can drink a cappuccino on a day as hot as this. Oikawa doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

The café is deliciously cool inside, filled with the rattle of voices contained within the space. He finds it strangely calming and doesn’t feel so alone like this. He tosses his wallet from hand to hand, inspecting the pastry displays at the front counter. The interior is cool and as fresh as the air conditioning, small green shoots sprouting from pots situated high up on the walls. He likes this place – he always has and probably always will. Sighing, he feels his shoulders relax and he takes a few short steps forwards as the line moves up.

“Oikawa.”

Oikawa almost jumps clean out of his skin at the sudden call of his name behind him; whipping around he fixes the person behind him with wide, bright eyes, a polite, easy smile already poised on his lips. At the sight of Ushijima Wakatoshi, however, that smile falls flat on his face and all the stress returns to his muscles. “What do you want, Ushiwaka-chan?”

“Nothing. I merely saw you here and thought it would be polite to greet you.” Ushijima’s golden eyes are unflinching as he looks at Oikawa, face as stony and unreadable as ever. Oikawa sneers, though it isn’t as cutting as it might have been otherwise – Ushijima had said his name in a voice so low and even that it was dredging up awful memories that Oikawa should certainly not be remembering in the middle of a crowded café.

“Are you always this annoying, Ushiwaka-chan? Or am I just special?” Oikawa’s voice is snider, this time, more venomous. Ushijima frowns, a little wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows.

“No… are you angry at me, Oikawa? Is this about what happened yester–,” before he can finish, Oikawa slaps a hand over his mouth and fixes him with the hottest glare he can possibly muster.

“If you breathe a word to _anyone_ about what happened between us yesterday I will skin you alive.”

Ushijima blinks calmly, and then gives a muffled reply, forcing Oikawa to remove his hand.

“I wasn’t going to tell anybody. You seem very upset about it. Did I hurt you?” Ushijima’s concern, while surely inspired in good faith, does nothing but make Oikawa unfathomably angry. He glares at the other man, the hair on the back of his neck bristling. It’d be easier, he thinks bitterly, if Ushijima reacted. But he wasn’t reacting, not in the slightest.

“You didn’t fucking hurt me,” Oikawa hisses. “You just –,” He can’t finish. He grates his teeth together, cheeks flushed with anger and eyes positively ablaze with it. “I hate you, Ushiwaka.”

Again, Ushijima blinks slowly, eyes not once breaking away from Oikawa’s.

“You don’t hate me.”

Oikawa slaps him.

_I do hate you. I hate you just as much as I fucking hate myself right now._

As the sound of the slap rings through the café, the nattering voice dim a little as people turn to look. Oikawa’s eyes flick to the window where Iwaizumi is looking in; his face is shocked and a little angry, and Oikawa watches as he gets up and heads inside, making his way through the maze of tables towards them. Oikawa can hear the girl at the register call something out to them, but he isn’t listening.

“Is there a problem here?” Iwaizumi asks, squaring his shoulders. He’s shorter than Oikawa, and especially shorter than Ushijima, but he’s broad and he’s strong and he has _that_ look in his eye. Ushijima – damn him – turns his gaze to Iwaizumi, as unwavering as it had been not a few minutes before despite the fact that Oikawa’s palm had just passed violently across his face.

“There is no problem,” Ushijima replies evenly, as though the growing redness on his cheek doesn’t exist. Iwaizumi narrows his eyes at him, not trusting a word.

“Of course there’s a problem,” Oikawa starts, still upset, before he realises that he can’t continue this in front of Iwaizumi. Not if he wants his secret to get out. Reluctantly, he bites his tongue and backs off, though he doesn’t sacrifice his glare.

“Is he bothering you? We can take this outside if you like, Ushiwaka.” There’s a threat in Iwaizumi’s voice that Ushijima _still_ doesn’t seem to pick up on. But there’s something in his eyes – a kind of understanding there that only Oikawa seems to notice, and it makes him feel faintly ill.

“Iwa-chan, it’s okay. He’s just being stupid, as usual. Ushiwaka-chan, go to another café.”

Ushijima doesn’t reply, at first. He looks from Iwaizumi to Oikawa, then back to Iwaizumi, then down to his own wallet that sits in his broad palm. Oikawa makes the mistake of following his gaze, eyes appraising the dark skin and those smooth, short fingernails that had left so much delicious damage –

“I have to make my purchase first.”

Oikawa tears himself out of the line, stalking out of the café before his head explodes. It suddenly feels far hotter inside the café than outside, his skin burning with rage and embarrassment and shame. The fresh air feels almost cool and he hears the little bell above the door tinkle as Iwaizumi follows in quick pursuit. “Wait a second!”

Hanamaki and Matsukawa, upon seeing Oikawa furious and Iwaizumi following at his heels, straighten up in their chairs like guard dogs on alert. They’re eager for news, Oikawa can tell, but he doesn’t feel like talking to anybody, not even his best friends.

 _He knows I’m in a relationship,_ he thinks in a panic as he steps out from under the shade of the awning into the glaring sunlight that lays searing against his neck. _He knows because I told him yesterday. I didn’t tell him_ who _I’m in a relationship with –_ he presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, head spinning. _He fucking does now._ He’d seen the comprehension click in Ushijima’s eyes like the drop of a penny. The worst thing is that Ushijima had seemed almost complacent about it.

“Oikawa! Will you listen to me?” Iwaizumi’s hand closes firmly around his arm, pulling him to a stop in the middle of the pavement. His eyebrows are clustered together in concern, his dark eyes searching Oikawa’s face. “Jesus. I haven’t seen you get that upset at Ushiwaka since middle school. I’ve never seen you _hit_ him before. What’s going on? Oikawa, tell me what’s wrong.”

Oikawa swallows down his apprehension and his turmoil, coiling them tight up in his gut and ignoring them as best he can. He has to wait a little longer, just until he’s alone where nobody can see him come undone. Just until then. “Nothing’s wrong, Iwa-chan! It’s the heat. It’s making me strange.”

Iwaizumi squints at him, the very face of incredulity, and Oikawa can tell he doesn’t believe a word of it. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not,” Oikawa lies firmly. “I promise. It’s the humidity. It’s putting too much pressure on my brain.”

Iwaizumi lets go of his arm and Oikawa can’t tell if he’s offended or confused. The glare of the sun on the high of Iwaizumi’s cheekbones distorts his expression a little, and yet Oikawa thinks that it’s really kind of beautiful, and that if Iwaizumi could be described as anything, it would be the sun. It makes Oikawa feel inexorably guilty. He doesn’t break his gaze, though, because that would be as good as admitting the truth.

Iwaizumi parts his lips to say something, but before he can speak Hanamaki and Matsukawa come over to them, expressions both puzzled yet pleased. “What happened in there? Good on you, Tōru. It was only a matter of time, really.”

Oikawa looks at them coolly, their presence cooling his head. “You know what Ushiwaka-chan’s like…” Thankfully, they both nodded in comprehension, and Oikawa capped his sentence with an easy smile, shrugging loosely. “Whatever, it’s over with now. I won’t see him again for ages, anyway! Next time he won’t approach me or else I’ll pack him one again.”

“You’ll turn into a criminal if you think like that.”

“Ushiwaka is a special case, Takahiro! I don’t just go around punching old ladies or kids or anything like that.”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “You didn’t even punch _him_.”

“I almost did.”

Oikawa feels strange. He knows he can’t keep glancing at the door of the café, or the seating area, or the windows, but he keeps his peripheral vision trained on all three all the same. He _knows_ he shouldn’t be watching for Ushijima, to see where he exits or where he sits, but the curiosity itches almost as strongly as desperation. He’d told Ushijima to back off, he’d slapped him across the face in plain view of the public eye – in essence, he’d brought about the closure he’d so desperately craved, and yet now he can’t keep his eyes and his mind from searching for the person he perhaps hates the most in the entire world.

He doesn’t see Ushijima again.

He glances down at his watch, tilting it away from the glare of the sun. “Oh, I’ve gotta go. I promised I’d help my mom with some stuff at home!” The wind of relief licks at the back of his neck at the truth of his claim, and he knows that Iwaizumi will _have_ to believe him, seeing as he’d had a conversation with Oikawa’s mother that very morning about it. The words still feel strange on Oikawa’s tongue, though.

Iwaizumi offers to drive him home, and offer that Oikawa eagerly accepts – he doesn’t feel like walking home in the heat or taking a crowded, un-air-conditioned bus where he’ll just end up drenched in the sweat of others. They sit in silence, somewhat unable to make even idle conversation. But that’s the good thing about Iwaizumi, Oikawa thinks as he leans back in the seat, watching out the window as the houses roll by. Iwaizumi doesn’t have to talk to be good company. He’s never really been a big talker (that had always been Oikawa’s job), but he’d never been one for awkward silences, either. He glances over to Iwaizumi, over to where his hands sit on the steering wheel in the sun, knuckles glowing gold.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says after he pulls up at Oikawa’s house; he reaches out to grasp Oikawa’s wrist as he reaches for his seatbelt, stopping him. “You sure you’re okay? You seem kind of… off.”

Another one of those infuriatingly easy smiles floats up to Oikawa’s lips and he finds himself thankful for the angle of the sun that casts deep shadow over his face. “I’m a-okay, Iwa-chan. Don’t worry.” He tries to pull away, then, but Iwaizumi’s grip remains constant.

“Call me when you’re finished your chores. I want to come over later.”

Usually Oikawa would have made a snarky remark, but this time believes it unfitting; he keeps his eyes trained on Iwaizumi’s, skin tingling beneath his touch, and when he speaks his tone is soft. “I will.”

 

* * *

 

 

Oikawa had, of course, been lying about having to help his mother. He’d needed an excuse to get out and away to clear his head lest he became overwhelmed, or even worse – let slip his secret. He goes to ask her if she has any jobs she wants him to do anyway, and her head pops up from over the back of the couch where she’s lying watching the television.

“No, I don’t,” she tells him, a crooked smile very similar to her son’s lighting her lips. “My, Tōru, this is strange. You have time to help me around the house? It’s almost a shame there’s nothing to do! Maybe I should go and make some mess just so I can see you clean.” He can’t help but laugh.

He ends up lying on his back on his bed, the window thrown open to admit the few licks of a cool breeze, tossing his volleyball up into the air and watching as it rises and spirals down back into his hands. The way they curl around the weave of the ball reminds him – horribly – of how his fingers had looked tangled in Ushijima’s dark hair. His hair had been so much softer than Iwaizumi’s, a little longer at the front, and it smelled different, like pine needles and sandalwood and the smell of an empty court –

The ball tumbles from his fingers to the floor, rolling across the room to come to a stop beside his dresser. He stares at it, chills running up his spine, and a tiny, _tiny_ voice takes hold of him. _You could go back,_ it tells him. _You could call Ushiwaka and ask him for it. To give you that_ feeling _again._ The shiver gets stronger and the muscles in his chest clench up.

Oikawa sits up with a sharp intake of breath, swallowing nervously and feeling around for his phone. When he finds it shoved beneath his pillow he punches in a number, fingers almost shaking with desperation. The dial tone sounds shrill and grates against ever nerve in his body – when the line picks up relief crashes through him like a wave. “Iwa-chan, I’m done! You should come over now and keep me company before I die of loneliness.”

“You’re such a dumbass. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

 

Oikawa can’t remember being so relieved to see Iwaizumi in his life. As soon as he hears Iwaizumi come through the front gate he bounds down the stairs, flinging open the door and meeting Iwaizumi halfway down the steps. He hears Iwaizumi chuckling in his ear, hands running up his back, and Oikawa feels all his burdens slip from his shoulders like butter. “You okay?”

Oikawa pulls back from him, holding Iwaizumi’s face between his hands. “Better now you’re here, Iwa-chan.”

Oikawa’s mother calls out a greeting to Iwaizumi as they go inside, heading upstairs to Oikawa’s room, and he ducks into where she’s stationed on the couch for a quick chat. When they get to the landing Oikawa winds his fingers through Iwaizumi’s, feeling how strong they are, all the calluses between the fingers from Iwaizumi’s constant spiking. _My ace. My Iwa-chan._ Iwaizumi seems to be content now that Oikawa is back to his ‘usual self’, and he follows Oikawa into his bedroom with their hands still clasped together.

“I was worried about you today,” Iwaizumi admits as he flings himself down onto Oikawa’s bed, folding his arms behind his head and letting out a sigh of relief as his weight is taken from his spine.

“Hush now, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa mumbles as he sits down next to Iwaizumi; he bites back his desperation to avoid the subject. Right now he knows he just needs to _be_ with Iwaizumi, to ignore everything, to focus solely on the one thing that had brought him comfort all these years. He runs his hands up Iwaizumi’s chest, moving to kiss the line of his jaw, and Iwaizumi in turn pulls him a little closer (despite being a little shocked at Oikawa’s assertiveness), shifting enough to let Oikawa ease himself down next to him. Iwaizumi’s fingers thread through Oikawa’s hair, stroking down the sides of Oikawa’s face in a gesture that Oikawa still isn’t quite used to. Iwaizumi was never tender, not even as children, but as they’d grown up and grown closer Oikawa began to see – fracture by fracture – little bits of tenderness, of gentleness, that Oikawa likes to believe Iwaizumi only shows him.

“Hey, Iwa-chan?” he murmurs, nestling himself into the crook of his boyfriend’s body.

“Hm?” Iwaizumi sighs in response, hands dragging up Oikawa’s sides and lips searching for Oikawa’s own; he finds them, eventually, pressing a number of little kisses to them.

“I love you.” The words are genuine as they come, accompanied by a longer, deeper kiss, wrapping arms and tangling legs; the sound of Oikawa’s voice is punctuated by a deep, rolling moan from somewhere deep inside Iwaizumi’s chest, sending shivers shooting through Oikawa’s limbs.

“I love you too, Tōru.”

Oikawa loves the way Iwaizumi makes him feel. Warm, safe, loved. They’re all such _good_ things, he thinks. The kind of things a lover is supposed to make you feel. And yet – the nausea begins to rise in his gut, muscles clenching and releasing under Iwaizumi’s touch. Sex with Iwaizumi always starts out like this: gentle touches and kisses that always lead to shedding clothes and muffled moaning. _It’s typical,_ Oikawa thinks. _Two teenagers making love._ He can’t help but think of Ushijima and of what they did – despite the pleasant ache in his groin, Oikawa knows he can’t let Iwaizumi in. Not now. Not until the bruises have healed and that hickeys has faded; whenever Iwaizumi’s lips hazard towards Oikawa’s neck the setter shifts a different way to direct those kisses somewhere else. Iwaizumi can’t find the marks – he can’t find the evidence Ushijima left behind. Oikawa would never let that happen. It would shatter him, and Oikawa would rather die.

 _Then you shouldn’t have done it in the first place,_ the tiny voice tells him. _You should have thought of Iwa-chan, you should have stopped. But in the end, you didn’t stop, even though you thought of Iwa-chan. What kind of boyfriend does that make you? What kind of_ person _does that make you?_

As distress rises higher in his throat, Oikawa becomes so absorbed in his own thoughts that when his shirt begins to lift from his back he finds himself rather alarmed; he sits up, sitting astride Iwaizumi’s stomach, cheeks flushed, grappling his shirt back down again. Iwaizumi, who had never met any resistance before, stares up at him with hands still suspended in the air. He looks shocked.

“Tōru?” He _sounds_ shocked. And a little concerned.

“I don’t feel like it today, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa supplies – it’s an excuse even _he_ doesn’t believe, and the way Iwaizumi’s eyes narrow the tiniest bit indicate that he doesn’t believe it either.

“What’s going on, Tōru?” Iwaizumi asks, voice hard.

“Nothing. Does something have to be wrong for me to not want this, Iwa-chan?”

Oikawa’s question hangs heavy in the air. Iwaizumi’s eyes don’t leave Oikawa’s, not once, and Oikawa is the one who breaks the gaze first, leaving Iwaizumi to chew over the question. Maybe Iwaizumi can tell Oikawa has something he doesn’t want to tell him. Maybe it’s making him feel bad – Oikawa doesn’t want that, of course not, but it’s better than telling him the truth. That would hurt him a lot more.

“No… no. You’re right. Come on.” Iwaizumi sighs and pats the bed next to him, letting Oikawa nestle down beside him again. They spend the rest of the afternoon reading manga and magazines or watching television; one of Oikawa’s favourite dramas was airing that afternoon, and despite Iwaizumi’s eye-rolling and protesting, they watch it together.

Iwaizumi leaves later that evening after Oikawa’s mother persuades him to stay for dinner, belly full of food and lips thoroughly kissed and shirt smelling of Oikawa. Oikawa sees him off at the gate, watching after him for a little bit as he walks off down the street before going back inside. The moment he’s without Iwaizumi he feels heavy again, guilty – he was able to stomach being affectionate with Iwaizumi to that extent _despite_ the fact that every smile was a lie. He scoffs at himself, shutting himself back into his room. At least, he reasons, he didn’t sleep with him. At least he had control enough for _that._

_And yet you didn’t have that control around Ushiwaka-chan, did you now?_

Oikawa tries his hardest to shove the tiny voice aside.

His phone buzzes once, twice, and Oikawa looks over to where it lies on his desk. _Did Iwa-chan forget something_? Oikawa thinks curiously as he goes to turn his phone over, checking the screen. Immediately his stomach drops and his blood turns to ice in his veins; he drags in a breath or two and finds it remarkably difficult to do so. The number on the screen isn’t saved under a name and Oikawa doesn’t recognise it at all; the message, however, leaves him with no doubts as to who had sent it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheers for all the comments/kudos!

_“The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.”_

_– Willa Cather_

* * *

  

**[1] New Message from: [unknown number]**

**Oikawa. I am still somewhat stumped by our transgression in the café today. I would like to talk with you about this. Please call me when you can.**

_He didn’t even sign a name. How like him._

There is no question that the message is from Ushijima. After all, who else would send Oikawa a text like that? The only other person who texts with such precision is his grandmother.

Oikawa locks his phone and flings it onto his bed, flinging himself down after it and burying his face in his arms. “I hate him. I hate him I hate him I hate him.” He feels like a child throwing a tantrum, and perhaps that’s _exactly_ what he’s doing – he doesn’t care. He rolls onto his back, staring at the stars on his ceiling. His phone is under him. He could just text back, telling Ushijima to fuck off.

He wants Ushijima to hear the venom in his voice, though. He wants to filter everything he’s feeling into those few choice words. He digs around for his phone again, opening it and staring at the message displayed on the screen for a few long seconds. He stares at the number, memorising the digits with as much contempt as he can muster. Then he punches them into the dial pad and holds the phone to his ear.

“Hello, Oikawa.”

At the sound of Ushijima’s voice Oikawa’s lip curls in distaste; of course, this is hardly normal. Ushijima’s voice sounds a little different down the phone line, but it’s him – it’s _definitely_ him.

“Hello, Ushiwaka-chan!” Oikawa chimes. “Don’t think you’re special, because you’re not.” His voice is sickly sweet, like gum stuck to the underside of a desk, and he pushes all his hate and anger and guilt into his tone. It grates against his teeth and if it had a taste, it would be bitter as anything. “Piss off, Ushiwaka. I don’t want to talk to you, not now, not ever. I don’t want to see your ugly face ever again, okay?”

In all honestly, Oikawa isn’t sure what he expected. Did he expect Ushijima to hang up without a word? To come back with some snarky, half-wit remark? To make some blunt comment and miss the point completely? Oikawa – while not being as brief as he’d initially wanted to be – still feels like he got the point across relatively well.

“You cannot hinder fate, Oikawa.”

He hadn’t been expecting that.

There’s a drop in Ushijima’s voice, like the drop in a song that makes you shiver, and Oikawa _does_ indeed shiver at the sound of it. Ushijima hadn’t said it to be deep or sexy or anything like that – he doesn’t have the capacity for that. Oikawa wants to feel furious that Ushijima has the _nerve_ to be so unaffected by the venom he’d had previously pushed down the phone line, but… he can’t. He can’t be as angry as he feels he should be. And he hates it.

“Fate my ass, Ushiwaka-chan,” he spits back eventually. “Stop making excuses.”

“I’m not. The café was not premeditated, Oikawa. It was beyond both of our control. Ah – that reminds me. When we…” Ushijima’s voice breaks off as he corrects himself. “The other day in the gym. You said you were in a relationship – it is with Iwaizumi?”

Oikawa grits his teeth. _Put the phone down, Tōru. Hang up._ He doesn’t. “…Yes.” He doesn’t know why he’s cooperating, but he can distinctly sense the beginnings of how he’d felt in the gym. _Just give yourself over. It’s so easy. Give it up._

“You let me fuck you even though you are in a relationship with him?”

Oikawa draws in a long, low breath. Something about the way Ushijima says ‘fuck’ makes him ache; Ushijima isn’t the type to curse, but when he does curse he somehow manages to do it exceptionally well. Oikawa remembers seeing those lips forming around that particular word and the sensations that went with it – his eyes flutter closed at the thought, gut lurching pleasantly. He presses his hand to his abdomen, cursing himself.

“Well, obviously. I wasn’t in my right mind.” Even his voice sounds a little weaker. _Pull yourself together, goddamn it!_

There’s a short pause before Ushijima speaks again, voice as low and as viscous as before. “Oikawa, can I ask you something?”

“Whatever, just get it over with.”

“Who is better?”

Oikawa is speechless, mouth hanging agape against the receiver in shock (and horror). Never in his crisp seventeen years on earth did he _ever_ expect those words to leave Ushijima Wakatoshi’s lips, let alone directed at _him_.

And yet – it makes him think.

Immediately he’s on the defence. Sex with Iwa-chan is wonderful! Iwaizumi is always careful not to hurt him but manhandles him to bruises when Oikawa assures him that it’s ok to be a little rough. He fills him just the right way, never comes too early or too late, never leaves Oikawa sore in the morning. Sex with Iwa-chan is just fine, Oikawa thinks solemnly. Just fine. It’s nice when he sucks in a few hickeys or leaves a few marks – because Iwaizumi is the possessive kind, there’s no doubting it – and Oikawa knows he’s never been unsatisfied. In fact, it begins to dawn on him that Iwaizumi and Ushijima really aren’t that different, and yet they couldn’t be any less similar.

_But if you were satisfied with Iwa-chan, then why didn’t you turn Ushiwaka away, hm?_

Oikawa is silent.

His mind is suddenly filled with the animal desperation he’d felt in the gym, the searing heat of Ushijima’s skin against his own, the vulnerability of it all; Ushijima didn’t fit him perfectly and that’s why it felt so good. The pain of it, the way Oikawa was never truly comfortable… it all combined into mind-numbing pleasure that he parches for like an animal without water. Iwaizumi had fucked him hard like that before, but with Ushijima it was _different_.

It was better.

There’s a guilty lurch in his stomach again, but this time it’s rivalled by a swell of arousal low in his groin. He’s tired, he reasons, he’s let down his guard too much. And yet he does nothing to fix it, nothing to protect himself from the way he’s feeling – the way Ushijima is making him feel. He has no way of stopping the anger fuelling the pleasure, no way of stopping his treacherous fingers from creeping down his stomach.

He can’t… lie.

“Oikawa?” Ushijima asks after a long silence, Oikawa only having mumbled something obscure.

“…u.” Oikawa draws in a deep, shaky breath. “You.”

Is it possible to hear complacency? Oikawa detects only a flicker of it, but Ushijima was never one to be smug; he lets his ears ride the noise of Ushijima’s breathing, the tenor of that infuriatingly syrupy voice as it curled around his name.

“Ushiwaka-chan, I hate you,” Oikawa breathes against the receiver, but his breath is hotter and heavier now. He licks his lips, throat closing up with the knowledge that he is about to do something he definitely should not do. “Say my name again.” _What are you doing?!_ his mind shrieks at him, scrabbling for reason and finding none. He doesn’t listen. He _can’t_ listen – at least not with the sensation between his thighs or the prickle against his skin.

“Oikawa…” Ushijima’s voice drags out the name in his confusion, and yet somehow it just makes it even hotter; his voice is so deep, rougher, more _adult_ than anything Oikawa is really used to. Oikawa spreads his knees a little, the hem of his shorts riding a little higher up his thighs; he craves touch, _Ushijima’s_ touch. He needs to feel like he did in the gym. He _needs_ it.

“I hate you.”

“You don’t hate me.”

Oikawa’s breath snaps, hitching in his throat as his hand hovers above his hipbone. _Don’t._ The last time Ushijima had said those words Oikawa had slapped him. This time the setter’s hand longs to be touching somewhere else and it definitely isn’t his face.

“Oikawa… are you all right?”

Oikawa grits his teeth in frustration. “I’m _fine,_ ” he responds curtly, the tips of his fingers touching against his inner thigh. His skin is burning hot, slick with sweat from the heat already.

“Are you touching yourself?”

 _He really has no grace whatsoever,_ Oikawa thinks dryly, licking his lips again, tongue feeling swollen and heavy in his mouth. _It’d be kind of cute if it wasn’t so annoying._ Still, Oikawa shifts his hips, unable to lie. Oikawa Tōru, who had previously congratulated himself on his ability to flawlessly lie, is now sinking back into his sheets with a hand on his thigh and his tongue helplessly tied.

“Oikawa. Answer me.”

_There it is._

“Yes,” Oikawa gasps; there’s a certain shift of tone in Ushijima’s voice, something darker and steelier, something that wasn’t there before. Oikawa would even hazard to call it ‘naturally authoritarian’, the sign of a born leader, the sign of a beast. There’s a short pause from the other end of the line and for a moment they’re suspended in silence, just breathing and waiting for the other to make the move that would lock them to their doom.

“I want to touch you again,” Ushijima tells him, voice deep and smooth as honey. “I want to see you bent out of shape and slick with sweat, Oikawa, regardless of whether or not you have Iwaizumi.”

Oikawa’s heart is racing in his chest – it’s beating so loudly he can hear it in his ears, feel each throb all the way to his fingertips. He’s unbearably hot and he spreads his legs to try and invite some cooler air, hand creeping down his thigh towards the apex of his legs. His spine is alight with electricity and he finds himself wishing the same things – he wants those burning broad hands to shove his legs apart, he wants skin to be broken and bruised, he wants to release the beast again. He _needs_ it.

He pinches the phone between his cheek and his shoulder, then, shoving his shorts down to his knees and letting his fingers curl shaking around his cock, already hard as anything, a pearl of precum gathering at the crown.

“You’re mine.” Ushijima’s voice is a snarl and Oikawa’s hips jolt up into his hand in response. “Even if your mind refuses to acknowledge it, Oikawa, your body seems to be fully aware of the fact.”

“I’m not…” he croaks back, still managing to retain some venom in his voice. “I’m not yours.”

But he feels it.

 _Possessive._ Iwaizumi is possessive, especially of Oikawa. He doesn’t like it when Oikawa flirts with the girls, even though it’s just harmless fun – he likes to mark him up, to put his hands around his neck. So how is it that Ushijima can use only his voice to make Oikawa feel this way? To feel… owned. Like a dog. A bitch. He doesn’t _want_ to feel owned, and yet he can’t help the tightness in his chest or the quickening of his hand as it moves between his quivering thighs. Like a bitch responding to a master’s call – Oikawa chews the inside of his cheek, fighting back against the overwhelming pleasure that grips him.

_Iwa-chan can’t make you feel like this._

With his free hand he reaches behind him, shifting so he rests on his hands and knees, sinking down until his chest lies against the sheets, one hand curled round his cock and the other pressing tentative fingers against his entrance.

He pushes a little and his hole yields almost immediately; it’s soft and hot and it sucks his fingers in almost desperately. He’s desperate for something bigger, bigger even than what Iwaizumi can supply, more uncomfortable, more painful. He’s desperate for it, and before he knows it he’s slipped three fingers inside himself, working them in as deep as he can until he reaches that golden spot that has his vision fringed with stars.

“…eed it,” he gasps into the receiver, voice muffled by the angle of his lips against the sheets. “I need it.”

Was that a chuckle? Oikawa can’t be sure, but he hears a jolt in Ushijima’s own breathing, the phone being shifted, the rustling of material.

“I want to fuck you again,” Ushijima groans down the line, voice a deep rumble like summer thunder. Oikawa can feel it vibrate in the very marrow of his bones. His voice drops to a whisper, then. “Cum for me, Oikawa. Do it.”

Oikawa wasn’t even close to cumming, not in the slightest – it was still only sharp spikes of arousal, the dull ache, the slow climb to climax he hadn’t quite neared – and yet as soon as Ushijima tells him to cum he feels a sudden spike of heat in his groin that’s so intense it’s almost unbearable. Tears spring to his eyes and his knees begin to shake, eventually giving out as he slides down onto the sweat-damp sheets, bucking himself back on his fingers and working his dripping cock over in his hand. “…shiwaka, Ushiwaka, I’m cumming, God, please –,” Oikawa’s voice breaks off as he buries his face in a pillow, unable to swallow down the moan that’s torn from his throat as his orgasm hits him.

His entire body shakes and his vision flashes white and he’s cumming, oh, he’s cumming hard against his palm, breath ragged, coming undone all at once just at the sound of Ushijima’s voice, just at his command. His body sinks to the sheets like sugar melting in the sun and he lies there, prone as a corpse, turning chilly with the cooling sweat. He can barely move a muscle and focuses only on breathing, deep and even, until he can manage to gather his wits about him again.

He can still hear Ushijima on the phone. The other man is only breathing and while it’s certainly not as laboured as Oikawa’s it certainly isn’t calm, either, and all Oikawa can think about is Ushijima sitting alone in his room with that magnificent cock clenched in his fist, head thrown back as he climaxes with Oikawa’s name on his lips. Small aftershocks of pleasure jolt through him at that.

A while later Oikawa sits up, slowly, taking the phone with him and holding it to his ear, just breathing. Just breathing. He feels like he’s just walked away from a volleyball match, sweaty and dishevelled. _Iwa-chan… I’m so sorry._

His throat grows tight, heart speeding up again. He can’t breathe – the air is growing too close, too warm. He knew it was only a matter of time before his emotions caught up with him and he bites into the back of his fist, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears searing the backs of his eyes. _Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, I love you, I’m sorry –_

“Oikawa –,”

Oikawa’s voice is a flat, cracked whisper. “Never talk to me again.” With that, he flips his phone shut and is met with absolute silence.

 

There are three knocks at his door in quick succession; they’re tentative knocks, however, and Oikawa rolls over onto his side at the sound of them, bundling his covers tighter around him. His mother opens the door softly, peering into her son’s room.

“Tōru? Are you awake?”

He doesn’t reply.

He hears the door close and his mother’s soft footsteps cross the room. “Tōru, it’s almost noon. You’re not sleeping, I know you aren’t. Is something wrong?”

He doesn’t move. She sits down on the edge of his bed, leaning over him to catch a glimpse of his face. “You never sleep like this. You know, my dear, when you were a little boy you always used to sleep like that – rolled into the wall – when you didn’t want to go to school. I could always tell, you know. Some cough up, Tōru.” She nudges him. “What’s going on?”

Oikawa shifts, turning enough to meet her gaze. They just look at each other for a few moments; Oikawa decides that it’s not worth lying, really.

Suddenly his mother perks up. “Oh, yes, I forgot! Hajime rang before and asked if he could come over later today. I told him yes, of course –,”

“No,” Oikawa says quietly. His mother’s face falls in surprise.

“Eh? This… would have to be the first time you’ve not wanted to see Hajime. Ever. Tōru, what’s going on?”

Oikawa pulls his covers up over his head and feels his mother lean against his side, gently patting over his hip. “Everything. God, I suck.”

“Tōru, come on. Talk to me.”

He sits up, then, hair a mess and eyes bleary, covers still cocooned tightly around him. He holds his mother’s gaze, comforting himself in her warm brown eyes. She waits for him patiently with her hands curled comfortably in her lap. He reaches up to rub at his eyes, taking a deep breath in through his nose – he knows his mother won’t tell anybody. No matter what secret he’s told her in the past, she’d never told anyone. _I respect your privacy, Tōru,_ she’d told him when he was younger. _Your secrets are safe with me._

“Mom, I…” his voice is still parched. “I cheated on Iwa-chan.”

His mother blinks in surprise, eyebrows rising ever so slightly. She’s the only person – apart from Hanamaki and Matsukawa – who knows about the true nature of Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s relationship. That had been Oikawa’s big secret, and she’d never betrayed it.

“Hajime…? You’ve been unfaithful?” Somehow, her gaze doesn’t make him feel guilty. He just feels tired.

“God… shit.” He rubs his face again. “With Ushiwaka-chan, can you believe it?”

“Ushiwaka…? Oh, Ushijima? Isn’t he the one you hate so much?”

He bursts into tears.

“Oh, Tōru, my little boy,” his mother mumbles as she pulls him into her arms. He feels like a child again, like when he’d broken his arm at eleven, or when he’d gotten lost at an amusement park at eight. He sobs into her shoulder, long arms wrapping around her waist. She smells like home, he thinks, like family. Somehow it makes him feel better.

“I didn’t mean to,” he hiccups, scrubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. “It was only an accident, but I –,” he swallows, voice dropping to a whisper. “I can’t _stop_. It needs to stop, but I can’t.”

“Oh, come now.” Oikawa’s mother pulls a handkerchief from her pocket, freshly-washed and ironed, and reaches up to dab at the tears and the snot on her son’s face. “You love Hajime, that much is obvious. As a friend and as a lover, hm? You two have always been together, tight as anything.” She offers him a smile. “You have to think about him, too. Does he know?”

Oikawa shakes his head. _Not yet, anyway. It’s only a matter of time._

“These things never end well, Tōru. If you leave it too long you might just find yourself in some kind of inextricable situation – I don’t want to see you in a situation like that, not ever. What do you want to do about it?”

Oikawa rests his head against her shoulder, letting her take his hands in her own. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I hate it. It’s awful, and yet… I don’t know what it is about Ushiwaka-chan, because I hate him to pieces, but I just… there’s something about him. Something I really despise, but it’s what keeps me coming back.”

His mother kisses the top of his head, taking one hand from his and pressing it against his chest, right over his heart. She can feel it beneath her palm. “And what does this say?”

Oikawa swallows a sob. “It has to stop, mom. I can’t do this to Iwa-chan. I love him too much.”

She smiles at him reassuringly. “You need to meet with Ushijima-kun. You need to meet him face-to-face and I know it will be hard, but you need to do what you know is right. Not just for Hajime, either, but for you. Look at you, crying like this – as a mother, I can’t stand it. You need to meet with Ushijima-kun and tell him how things are.”

“Yeah.” He draws back from her, managing a smile that retains a flicker of warmth. She smiles back at him, kissing his cheek and hugging him tightly.

“I believe in you, Tōru. You’ll find a way.”

After his mother leaves to run some errands, Oikawa gets out of bed and goes to shower. He stands under the hot water with his eyes closed and face upturned towards the jets, letting his muscles melt under the heat. He knows his mother is right – he needs to see Ushijima face-to-face in order to convey the seriousness of this whole situation. It had been a bit of fun at first, but now Oikawa can feel it quickly spiralling into something messy.

He gets out of the shower, towelling himself dry and changing into some fresh clothing. His phone is still buried somewhere in his bed, and it takes him a few minutes to find it; once he does he sits down on the edge of the mattress and keys in Ushijima’s number. He doesn’t call him this time, though. A text should suffice.

 

**Create New Message**

**To: [unknown number]**

**ushiwaka-chan i need to meet with u to talk about what happened and maybe kick ur ass**

The response is immediate.

 

**New Message from: [unknown number]**

**I am afraid I’m unable to leave my house today. Would tomorrow suit you?**

Oikawa grits his teeth in frustration, but considers it – a whole day is time enough for him to change his mind or to chicken out, and he decides he really can’t afford to let that happen.

 

**To: [unknown number]**

**no it has to be today. give me your address. i'll come to u.**

Ushijima sends through his address, which Oikawa scribbles down on a piece of paper and tucks into the pocket of his shirt. He stands, about to leave, but then he sighs petulantly and opens his phone.

 

**Create Contact: [unknown number]**

**Save As: Ushiwaka-chan**

Those numbers annoyed him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm literally so tired of life and this fic hurts my soul
> 
> i'm sorry iwa-chan but i love to bully you


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all are gonna hate me for this

_“Rain makes me feel less alone. All rain is, is a cloud – falling apart, and pouring its shattered pieces down on top of you. It makes me feel good to know I'm not the only thing that falls apart. It makes me feel better to know other things in nature can shatter.”_

_―_ _Lone Alaskan Gypsy_

 

* * *

 

 

Oikawa stares down at his phone for a few very long seconds. It’s strange to have Ushijima’s name in his phone, saved to his contacts – it’s something he’d never in his life counted on happening. It’s something that, only a few weeks ago, would have sounded completely unbelievable and equally as horrifying. But now he’s staring down at the name, right there, capping a (albeit short) conversation.

He knows he has to get this over with. He can’t go on like this, with all the cajoling and the need and the open-endedness. He needs closure, more than just slapping Ushijima across the face. He needs to end it once and for all.

“I’m going now,” he calls to his parents as he heads towards the front door, stopping to pull on his shoes.

“Good luck!” his mother calls from where she and her husband sit at the kitchen table. “If you need me to come and pick you up, just give me a call, okay?”

“Got it.”

Oikawa’s father looks up from his newspaper, blinking in confusion before he turns to his wife and asks her where Oikawa is going; by that point Oikawa had already left, swinging the door shut behind him.

The sky is overcast as he steps outside and Oikawa vaguely remembers hearing the weather forecast on the radio as he passed the door – they weren’t predicting showers, but he figures he should have taken an umbrella with him all the same. He pauses, considering going back before shrugging and continuing out the gate and into the street, pointedly turning his gaze away from the direction of Iwaizumi’s house.

The station is only a few blocks from his house and it takes little more than ten minutes to get there by foot; by the time he arrives he’s already sweating, the humidity hanging thick in the air like fog. Around him are teenagers and young families, some with fans and some with umbrellas already spread. Some of the girls are wearing summer dresses and some of the children have sticky fists closed around the wooden sticks of their popsicles, infants shrieking with discomfort in the heat. It truly is a spectacularly gruesome day.

Stepping into the shade of the station Oikawa exhales in relief at the slight coolness of the tile. He makes his way over to the platform, fishing his ticket out of his pocket and wiping the bridge of his nose against his sleeve; standing there he’s at mercy of the heat and the sticky humidity and he finds that the stiller he stands, the hotter he becomes.

The train arrives spot-on time. Oikawa almost moans as the air conditioning washes over him like the most welcomed of kisses and he takes a seat near the door away from the sticky-handed children and girls in broad-brimmed hats. He needs this time to be alone, yet not completely – it’s comforting, he thinks, to be on board a train with other people. It’s not as bad as being crammed between sweat-soaked bodies but it doesn’t leave him on his own, either. A baby sitting in a pram wrapped in white cotton waves at him, and he smiles back.

Oikawa slips the paper with Ushijima’s address on it from his pocket and looks at it, reads it over. He’d perused it on his way to the station, plugging the directions into his phone to make sure he caught the right train. Now he reads it again, poring over the numbers and the street name and the suburb. He recognises it as an old suburb – a very old suburb where all the very old families live, on the outskirts of Sendai where the town meets the mountains. Looking up, he glances around the carriage again; he’s never been on this train before, since he’d never had to venture into that particular part of town, and he notices that not only is this train quieter than his own, but it’s also cleaner, neater, the passengers quieter than those he’s used to. _How fitting._

He supposes he ought to be nervous, but he doesn’t feel it. He’s too hot and too tired to be nervous anymore, and after what had happened the night before, he really doesn’t have the energy to work himself up into a frenzy. When Ushijima is _there_ , be it in person or not, hate rises unbridled in his chest, but the thought of him isn’t enough any more. If anything – and Oikawa is loath to admit it – he’s curious.

Rolling his head to the side he turns his gaze to the window. As the train chugs along, the high, dense houses of the inner-city suburbs fade away into houses that are lower, older, farther apart. Trees begin to replace power lines, thick and green against the side of the track and in the distance Oikawa can see the crest of the mountains that fringe Sendai. The clouds hang low and heavy in the sky and descend in a fog over the tops of the trees, kissing them gently like wandering fingers.

These are the traditional houses, Oikawa realises, back straightening. It’s the old part of the city where the old families still live with their gardens of raked sand and koi ponds. He’s not used to it – he’s used to suburbia, of modern devices and high concrete walls. Not this.

The train pulls into another station a few minutes later, and the chiming of the tannoy wrenches Oikawa from the half-daze he’d slipped into. He scrambles for the door – lacking in grace, which he later realises is rather unlike him – when he realises this is the stop he needs to disembark at, and he watches as the train pulls away, sleek and glistening with rain. Over the rails, now empty, he can see the ridges of the inner-city in the distance, slightly obscured by low cloud. It feels so different here – like the things he’d read about in books as a child, the place where the mountain gods live, forests rapt with spirits and shrines and ancient magic. It feels worlds away from Sendai, worlds away from all his problems and responsibilities, and he finds himself letting out a heavy, relieved breath.

The station is almost empty. Oikawa stands alone on the platform, just breathing in time with the rain dancing along the roof tiles and looking out over the distant city. It’s a lot more… remote than the other stations he’s used to, but it’s all rather charming. The azaleas clustered around the entrance of the small station nod in the rain, glistening in the watery grey light. _It’s beautiful._

Haphazardly, Oikawa walks to the edge of the station, the toes of his shoes nudging the distinct line of the rain that falls unhindered against the asphalt. He should have brought an umbrella.

As it is, he has to make do, and he figures that it would look stupid to try and use his hands or his shirt to keep himself dry –

“Oikawa.”

Oikawa’s attention snaps immediately to his left where he sees Ushijima, dressed casually in a white shirt and jeans, standing with his hands by his side and wet hair dripping into his eyes. _The mountain gods live here._

“I thought you couldn’t leave the house,” Oikawa remarks flatly, not offering so much as a hello. Ushijima approaches him and as he gets closer Oikawa notices that the shoulders of his shirt are damp with rain. “Did you forget to bring an umbrella, Ushiwaka-chan?” he sneers, though his voice isn’t as malicious as it usually is.

Ushijima blinks down at him, Oikawa’s meanness deflected completely, as usual. “Yes. It was not supposed to rain, and it began on my way here. I figured that the least I could do was to come and meet you here, seeing as you had to come out all this way.”

Oikawa’s throat closes tight. _He has the nerve to be concerned about me._

“It isn’t that far,” he mumbles.

“Shall we go, then?”

They walk in silence, side-by-side, and it’s probably one of the strangest things Oikawa has ever done. He’s never spent time with Ushijima like this, when it’s not filled with hate or bitterness or urgency – or desperation, for that matter. This time it’s almost… calm. Oikawa glances at Ushijima out of the corner of his eye and considers starting _that_ conversation, but he figures that it’s better to wait until they’re out of the public eye in case he makes a fool of himself like he did in the café. The silence beats around him, the air still unbearably heavy, the tense humidity remaining unbroken even though it’s raining.

“I should’ve expected you to live out the back of nowhere,” Oikawa says to break the silence. Ushijima looks at him for a second before turning his gaze back towards the empty road, asphalt blackened with the wet.

“It is not that far, as you said. My neighbourhood is just less developed.”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, fixing his collar as it grows damper and damper. “I don’t see why _I_ should have come out here. What’s so important, hm? Cooking dinner like a housewife? Walking the dog?”

“Well, yes.” Ushijima’s honesty shocks Oikawa so much he almost balks. “But there is also a leak in the upstairs bathroom and a split in one of the shōji doors that I’d hoped to fix before the rain came.” He holds out a hand, palm-up, letting the fat drops of rain splash against the skin. “It seems I was too late.” Oikawa’s eyes are drawn to it and a chill walks up his spine. _It’s just the rain,_ he assures himself. _Cold rain._

It’s a fifteen-minute walk from the station to Ushijima’s house. When it comes into view the first thing Oikawa sees are high stone walls crowned with black tiles, a sign clearly reading ‘Ushijima’ by the front gate. Ushijima holds open the gate for Oikawa, who steps under the eaves and into the garden clinging to the front of the house. Oikawa’s breath leaves his lungs.

The house is old, that much is glaringly obvious. It sits low with only one storey, with black tiled rooves that have beautifully curving eaves, tiles glistening in the rain. The screens to the verandas are thrown open and Oikawa can see into the house a little; it looks like it’s all clean tatami. There are trees clustered around the boundaries of the property and the mountains arch over from the back, and everything is _shining_ , the forest murmuring like a thousand soft voices. It’s beautiful; so beautiful, in fact, that Oikawa finds himself staring in awe.

“Down,” Ushijima calls sternly as a dog comes bounding around the side of the house, tongue lolling from its jowls. The dog skitters to a halt, padding softly over to Oikawa and snuffling around his feet. The setter can see another dog, an enormous Tosa Inu, lying sleepily on the veranda watching him from hooded, aged, gold eyes.

Oikawa leans down, delighted at how friendly the dog is, and scratches it behind the ears. It looks up at him with clear eyes, tail wagging fervently.

“Yoshio, away,” Ushijima says gently, and the dog turns to bark at him, nudging at his calf with its nose before trotting away again. “My apologies. He gets rather excited with new visitors. This way.”

Ushijima shows Oikawa inside out of the rain. They stand in the vestibule at the front door removing their shoes and revelling in the dryness. Oikawa peers around a little bit; there are old calligraphy scrolls hanging from the walls, the beams of the ceiling exposed; it’s what he would have expected from a traditional Japanese house, the sliding doors leading to the other rooms thrown open in the heat. The floor is made of shining wood, the vestibule made of stone to keep out the damp. There are a few other pairs of shoes – both men’s and women’s – and Oikawa can’t help but wonder who they belong to. His attention is drawn quickly back to Ushijima, however; the white material of his shirt has turned translucent in the rain and Oikawa can clearly see the powerful muscles of his back work as he reaches down to remove his shoes.

The air is hot and thick and heavy. The entranceway is narrow and their bodies almost touch; Oikawa can see the darkness of Ushijima’s skin through the wet material of his shirt, how it glistens at the base of his throat. He’s close, too close, as close as the air around them and the yearning to touch his tongue to the back of Ushijima’s neck swells up in his throat like a tide he can’t swallow.

“I –,” he begins, half-stumbling up onto the hardwood floor; his foot slips on the lip of the vestibule and he staggers, Ushijima’s hand shooting out to close around his arm, balancing him.

Close. So close. _Too_ close. Oikawa feels like crying as the tide rides higher inside him. _What am I doing? What’s happening to me?_

Ushijima’s brows crinkle together in a deep frown. His body is bent over Oikawa’s, heat rising from his skin like steam. Oikawa holds his gaze, eyes blown wide, begging himself not to give in.

“Oikawa –,” the name breezes over Ushijima’s lips and Oikawa shudders at the sound of it; he feels Ushijima’s other hand ghost along his side, and they hold each other’s gaze for a little longer, neither of them able to breathe. Oikawa knows this is the time to shove him off, to yell, to make a scene, to _stop_ this – to do what he’d come here to do. But his breath remains baited in his throat, eyes aflame with hate and with need, both of which Ushijima can clearly see. He hadn’t bothered wearing a high-necked shirt today, seeing as Ushijima knows about the marks – it’s Ushijima who breaks gaze first, eyes dropping to focus on the fading hickey stuck fast to Oikawa’s neck. He licks his lips and Oikawa swallows, a shaky breath leaving him.

“If you want me to stop,” Ushijima tells him, voice a low rumble vibrating against Oikawa’s palm where his hand is braced on Ushijima’s chest. “Say so now. Otherwise…” his breath ghosts up the side of Oikawa’s neck. “I don’t know if I will be able to hold back.”

It’s so easy. It’s so easy for Oikawa to say ‘no’, to give a little push, even to turn his face away. It’s so easy.

And yet.

He doesn’t.

Instead he can feel himself melt into Ushijima’s hands like syrup left in the sun, head tipping back and eyes fluttering shut, sticky, viscous. The heat, the humidity – it’s all making him mad. It’s driving him to the brink of insanity and making him melt, drip. There’s no other explanation for it. Oikawa can barely think like this – it’s like he’s drowning, suffocating slowly, as though Ushijima is choking the life out of him.

Suddenly Ushijima’s hands push up beneath Oikawa’s shirt, teeth scraping against the skin of Oikawa’s neck. Ushijima bites down, then, sinking his teeth into the flesh until Oikawa lets out a choked cry, shaking fingers fisting in the other man’s hair and pressing his mouth even closer. It’s cool and wet between his fingers and Oikawa leans in to press his face to the crook of Ushijima’s neck, inhaling, breathing him in, his scent, his essence. They both just breathe, enveloping themselves in each other’s scent, hands gripping to bring them closer in a desperation to be connected that neither of them can really understand. He knows he’s going to despise himself for this later, but all reason and inhibition flees him as he feels the ridge of Ushijima’s thigh press up between his legs.

“This is bad,” he manages to press out, weight dropping to ride along the spiker’s thigh. Ushijima grunts into his neck, sucking at the skin until it tingles and biting again, nipping his way up over Oikawa’s jaw and to his lips. It’s the first proper kiss they’ve had since that day in the gym and it’s deep and long and it takes very little pushing for Ushijima to press his tongue past Oikawa’s teeth and invade his mouth completely. Moaning, Oikawa feels himself melting further against Ushijima’s body, hands grappling with the wet material to wrestle it over Ushijima’s head. It falls with a wet thud on the floor and Oikawa rakes his nails down the wet, damp skin of Ushijima’s perfectly-sculpted chest, revelling in the touch and the sensation of being able to not only have Ushijima’s hands on _him_ , but to touch him himself.

At one point they slip, Oikawa’s back hitting the floorboards and his thighs falling apart like the petals of a flower. Ushijima rears over him like some kind of beast, eyes blown dark with lust, skin glistening like the roof tiles, his glorious form on complete display for only Oikawa’s eyes. The setter drinks it in, feeding ravenously on the complacency of having such a marvellous specimen crave him so much no matter how much Oikawa may despise him. His fingers drag hungrily over Ushijima’s abs to the waistband of his jeans.

“What about Iwaizumi?”

Ushijima sounds breathless when he speaks. Oikawa pauses, dread blooming in his chest, and stares up at him.

“Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa breathes, his heart beating fast and hard in his throat. He’s standing on the lip of an abyss and the spiralling darkness is only growing more and more attractive. But Iwaizumi dwells in the back of his mind, ever-present, and it makes him cold. He retracts his hands from Ushijima’s waistband.

Ushijima’s hand reaches forwards, following Oikawa’s as though it’s some sort of dance, and glides up to curl slowly around Oikawa’s throat. It closes around it, tight, and he leans down so their lips are but a hair’s breadth apart. He’s so close Oikawa can taste his voice against his lips, and every pore of skin stands on end in response. “You were always meant to be mine, Oikawa,” Ushijima breathes heavily as his hips press against Oikawa’s, the setter’s breath hitching in his throat. “Always. My Oikawa.” His hand grows tighter again and Oikawa feels a tingle at his temple, causing a shift of arousal deep in his groin. His legs fall open a little wider, allowing Ushijima to move closer between them until he can feel the press of the spiker’s erection against the seam of his trousers. “ _Mine._ ”

 _Mine._ Oikawa can barely breathe; Ushijima’s fingers press against his jugular but leave his windpipe slightly free, stopping the blood flow but leaving his airway open just enough. Oikawa’s lips open and half-mouth the word, not so much in response but in order to fully understand it. He’s dripping, hips fluttering needily; he’s little more than a bitch in heat at this point, and he knows it.

Oikawa lifts his chin, tears springing to his eyes as his body fights against his mind. His body is yearning unbearably to give into Ushijima’s touch but his mind is demanding he do the opposite – it’s a clash that’s tearing him to pieces. _Like a bitch to its master._

“I hate you,” Oikawa chokes as he closes the distance between them, yanking at Ushijima’s hair to pull their lips together in a hot clash of tongue and teeth.

Ushijima’s weight drops between his thighs and he grinds long and slow against Oikawa, broad hands moving down to help the setter wriggle out of his shorts. Ushijima breaks from the kiss, lips moving down Oikawa’s throat and over the hickey, down over his clavicles and his sternum. He stops at times to lick or bite at the skin, to leave a mark or two (or more) on the way down. By the time his mouth reaches Oikawa’s navel the setter’s hands are lodged firmly in his hair, hips arching up and cock smearing precum against Ushijima’s collarbone in its desperation for friction.

Strong hands push his legs back towards his chest. “Hold,” Ushijima commands, and Oikawa reluctantly removes his hands from the spiker’s hair to curl around his knees, holding his legs back. He blushes with shame at revealing himself so openly; like this, he is completely on display. Ushijima sits back on his haunches, drinking in the sight and licking his lips hungrily. He leans down, then, large hands curling around Oikawa’s hips as he presses his hot, wet tongue against Oikawa’s hole, causing the setter to cry out and buck his hips up. Ushijima only tightens his grip to the point where it’s almost painful.

Considering how untalented Ushijima is in the eloquence department, it appears his tongue is far more skilled at other things; it’s just as strong as the rest of him, it seems, and it pushes and probes and presses all the right places until Oikawa’s head is clouded and his hole is wet and open and flushed, begging for something bigger. Ushijima presses in a finger and it slips inside, right to the knuckle, with barely any resistance.

“Please,” Oikawa gasps out, hands springing from his legs and back to Ushijima’s hair as the spiker slides in another finger alongside the first. “Doesn’t matter, I just –,”

Before Oikawa can finish, Ushijima draws back and looks down at him with narrowed eyes. Again, he pauses, drinking in the sight; he can tell there’s still work to be done. Oikawa is still done up tight, and Ushijima can see only fractures in him. Fractures he wants to completely break apart. Almost frantically, Ushijima undoes his jeans and shoves them down his thighs, hissing at the release of his cock as it stands thick and hard above Oikawa’s, drooling already. He directs it down with his thumb, pushing the head against Oikawa’s hole.

“Ask for it.”

“H-huh…?” Oikawa opens his bleary eyes, dazed and a little pissed off that Ushijima isn’t putting it in already.

“Ask for it.”

Oikawa’s mouth is dry as sand. “P-please…” he breathes shakily. He’s so desperate – he craves it. He needs it like he needs the air to breathe. “Please fuck me.”

When Ushijima slams into him Oikawa lets out an animal howl so loud that Ushijima has to cram his fingers into his mouth to muffle it. Oikawa’s tongue trembles around his fingers and when he starts to suck at them Ushijima feels his gut clench unbearably tightly. He uses his free hand to spread Oikawa’s legs back further, spreading him open as he sets an unforgiving rhythm, each thrust shucking Oikawa back a little further along the floor. Ushijima bends down and presses their mouths together; it’s not so much a kiss as it is a fervent press of lip and tongue amidst ragged breathing and hard, broken moans.

It’s too hot for Oikawa. Too hot and humid and close. He can’t breathe, not with Ushijima’s weight on top of him and his tongue in his mouth; he begins to feel himself going dizzy with pleasure, his head spinning, and he wraps his arms around the spiker’s neck to anchor himself. His hips arch up to meet Ushijima’s with each thrust, driving the spiker’s cock deeper inside him, feeling the muscles work and the powerful line of his hips connect with the curve of his ass with each brutal hit. Each time it scrapes against Oikawa’s prostate the setter half-screams into Ushijima’s shoulder, teeth kneading against the flesh, fingernails digging into the other man’s shoulders hard enough to make him hiss. “Need it,” he pants as Ushijima straightens up, pulling Oikawa up into his lap and driving his cock in even deeper. “Fuck me harder!”

 _Don’t leave any of me behind, please,_ he begs silently as his head tips back, Ushijima’s lips attacking his neck again. _Kill me, destroy me, please, God, just ruin me!_ He barely has the strength to speak or to moan, and the sounds that are coming from his mouth are little more than weak groans and gasps. _This is it,_ he thinks dazedly as Ushijima fucks into him harder and harder, surrounding him with his scent. Ushijima wraps his arms tight around Oikawa, bringing him close and holding him close to his body, burying his face in the setter’s neck and breathing hard against the skin. Their movements are less brutal, softer but so much deeper; this angle drives Ushijima’s cock to places Oikawa didn’t even know he could reach and it makes him see stars. _I want him to destroy me completely. I never wanted Iwa-chan to destroy me._

That’s the last coherent thought he’s able to form before his mind turns to mush and he lets Ushijima manhandle him onto his back again, levering himself over Oikawa on those strong, dark arms. Their skin slides together slick with sweat and rain and Ushijima’s breath is beautifully laboured, Oikawa’s nails scrabbling weakly down his chest as he fucks the setter into the floor, harder, harder, _harder –_

“You’re mine,” Ushijima snarls against the corner of Oikawa’s mouth. He smells like the earth, like the forests, like the pages of a folk story, a smell that’s only emphasised by the rain; he feels Oikawa shudder beneath him, sighing and opening up like a beautiful flower in spring, or the mountains as they open to drink in the rain. “Tell me. Tell me you’re mine.”

“…ours,” Oikawa moans, tongue swollen and slurring his words as he fucks himself back against Ushijima’s cock as it splits him open, swelling with each thrust. Everything – each degree of resolve, each fraction of anger and of hate crumbles from him as he finally releases himself. “Yours, yours, I’m yours, I love it, fuck –,” His body is being pulverised and reduced into a puddle and he can do absolutely nothing to stop it. “Ushijima, Ushijima, I’m so close, I –,” again, his voice breaks off as a moan crawls from his throat. Oikawa’s hands tremble as he reaches up to take Ushijima’s face between his palms, fixing him with dewy, desperate eyes. It’s his worst betrayal yet and it leaves his lips in a choked whisper saturated with desperation. “Please destroy me.”

Ushijima’s head is ringing, crazed, almost. His hips stutter, Oikawa’s thighs clutching him tightly yet oh, so softly; the setter’s words ricochet around his head, pounding in his ears and filtering through his blood. _Yours, yours, I’m yours._ He lets his eyes fall shut, losing himself completely in Oikawa – in the smell of him, the taste of him, the feel of him. It’s as though his body has caught alight, though with what he isn’t exactly sure. He’s never wanted or needed anybody as much as he needs Oikawa Tōru. _Yours. I’m yours._ He shudders, reaching between them to wrap his rough palm around Oikawa’s cock. It’s dripping wet in his fingers and he moves his hand quickly, careful to angle his hips so his cock grinds over the setter’s prostate with each brutal thrust. He presses his lips to Oikawa’s ear, kissing the shell and catching the lobe between his teeth. “Cum, Tōru.”

Oikawa does. Oh, he does.

He cums with a curdling scream muffled against Ushijima’s lips, his body shaking uncontrollably. Ushijima gathers the setter in his arms, holding himself deep inside him and supporting Oikawa as he falters; the setter grapples weakly at Ushijima’s shoulders, fingers bruising and failing over the red raw lines left in their wake. Ushijima holds him, his body grinding against the unbearable tightening of Oikawa’s walls as he clenches around him, allowing the setter to milk ever drop of cum from his body. _Yours, yours, I’m yours._ Ushijima doesn’t moan when he comes. He only exhales deeply against Oikawa’s cheek. _I’m yours._

 

* * *

 

 

Destruction. Oikawa had always found it such a delicious word. It always tasted so pleasant on his tongue and was his favourite word in elementary school. When his teachers had asked him why he liked it so much, he’d only shrugged and told them: “I just do.”

He never knew why he found the word so attractive. For all intents and purposes, Oikawa was one of the most put-together people he knew. Destruction frightened him – the destruction of the physical, emotional, mental… anything. He didn’t like it at all. The destruction of his career, his relationships – those were thoughts he didn’t like to dwell on. Oikawa had never liked destruction. And yet, here was Ushijima Wakatoshi who walked hand-in-hand with destruction. Perhaps it was his brute strength or his lack of situational awareness, Oikawa didn’t know, but what he _did_ know was that Ushijima had the very singular talent of being able to leave decimation in his wake with a single touch. He was a destroyer, and that scared Oikawa. He’d never liked it at all. Year after year he’d looked into the very eyes of destruction and watched his chances of getting to nationals crumble. Ushijima Wakatoshi was destruction.

The thought had been a floating one. When he’d been lying on the floor inside Ushijima’s house with the spiker buried hilt-deep inside him, weight crushing the breath from his lungs, brain dripping from his ears, he’d realised it. He’d realised what Ushijima was giving him that Iwaizumi could not. What he’d been craving the whole time.

Destruction.

Oikawa had always craved being taken apart piece by piece, to be broken down and dissected and built anew. To Iwaizumi he was something old, something well-known and well-loved. Iwaizumi knew him and had no need to take him apart. It was never _just sex_. Oikawa needed to be dismantled in body and mind, to be gripped by absolute despair and agony and betrayal in order to feel whole. Because Oikawa Tōru had always been perfect, and just for once – for _once_ in his life – he wanted to be something different. He wanted to be destroyed, to be completely ruined.

And who better to be handed such a task than Ushijima Wakatoshi? The one person who had the ability to tear Oikawa to pieces?

It had been what was missing. What Iwaizumi could never give him.

He’d finally found it.

 

* * *

 

Oikawa comes to about fifteen minutes later. He’s lying on his back in an unfamiliar room; all is silent save for the soft falling of rain outside and the occasional shift of what he soon realises to be paper coming from somewhere outside his vision. There is a window by the bed, shutters thrown open, through which he can see the arching backbone of a mountain shrouded in cloud. He gently eases himself up onto his elbows, blinking a few times to rid himself of his disorientation; he is, he soon realises, in a bedroom.

 _Ushijima’s_ bedroom.

It’s all very strange. The room is spacious though not large, with a desk and a bed and a dresser all neatly arranged and spotless. There’s a bookcase, too, with all the books arranged alphabetically. Oikawa sees no trophies or no medals, though, which strikes him as a little odd, and there’s no clutter _anywhere_.

“Oh, you’ve woken up.”

Ushijima sits across the room in his desk chair, a pair of glasses perched on his nose and an open book in his lap. Oikawa sits up a little further as Ushijima stands and removes his glasses, placing them on top of his book upon the desk.

“What happened?”

“You… fell unconscious,” Ushijima replies, coming to a stop beside the bed. He says it a little bashfully, perhaps even a little guiltily, eyes downturned for only a moment before returning to Oikawa’s. He’s dressed in a fresh change of clothes and smells like he’s just showered. “I decided to keep you here until you woke up.”

Finally managing to sit up fully, Oikawa exhales and shifts a little, feeling a sharp sting in his backside as he does. He feels clean, as though Ushijima had wiped him down, and he notices that while he’s wearing his own trousers, he’s now wearing a shirt that is _definitely_ not his. In any other situation he would have gagged and torn it off, but he’s tired, _too_ tired for this, and so he just buries his face in his hands and breathes. His bones feel like barely-set gelatine, his muscles as uncooperative as a sleepy child.

“I am sorry.”

Ushijima’s voice is strangely soft and the mattress dips a little as he sits upon the edge of it at a polite distance from the setter. In a way it seems like a dream – sitting in Ushijima’s bedroom wearing one of his shirts, hearing him speak in such a tender voice – another time Oikawa might have called it a nightmare.

“You think that helps anything?” Oikawa asks, but there’s no bite to his voice anymore. _It’s just as much my fault as it is his. I can’t blame him solely anymore. He gave me the chance to leave and I didn’t take it._

“No. But I thought it was worth offering.”

They sit there in silence for a little bit, the edges of the windows smeared with fog. Oikawa looks at Ushijima’s face, regards it, notes his high cheekbones and his strong jaw. _He’s handsome._

And then he reaches out to touch Ushijima’s cheek, smoothing the backs of his fingers along the skin. Ushijima, startled by the touch, turns to look at him. Their gazes hold for a moment before Ushijima leans across Oikawa’s legs, slowly, and they just look at each other. Everything seems so far away, now – Sendai, the mess Oikawa had caused, Iwaizumi, everything. Worlds away; in another realm. It makes him feel safe.

“This is… too close for comfort, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa murmurs as Ushijima’s fingers move to stroke against his cheek in return, tips smoothing against the whispering hairs by Oikawa’s ear. Oikawa’s chin tilts at the touch, lifting, until his lips gently slot against Ushijima’s in a soft, gentle kiss. It’s devoid of the heat and passion and raw desperation from earlier – that’s what makes it so terrible.

Nausea takes hold of Oikawa very suddenly and he tears away from Ushijima, hand clapped over his mouth. “I…” He searches around for his shirt with his free hand, but being unable to find it he gives up and heads towards the door. “I have to go –,”

He’s stopped when Ushijima vaults from the bed and reaches out to take hold of his arm, catching him between the doorway and Ushijima’s own body. Oikawa struggles, trying to push Ushijima away before he vomits, but Ushijima won’t let him. “Oikawa, I –,” the spiker begins, but he’s cut off as Oikawa slaps him hard across the face.

There’s a heartbeat of silence that passes between them. Oikawa’s breathing hard with eyes wide and bright as anything, Ushijima holding his slapped cheek in his palm and staring right back. The breath is baited between them; it’s pregnant, like a storm about to break.

Oikawa is out of the house in a flash. He moves blindly, unsure where he’s going, but he manages to locate the door and grab his shoes, sprinting out into the rain. Yoshio, Ushijima’s zealous dog from before, bounds at him and whines when Oikawa pushes him away as he runs towards the gate. As he sprints down the street he can almost hear his name carried on the wind and knows he doesn’t need to turn around to see Ushijima standing in the road in the rain, deciding for whatever reason to let Oikawa go.

He’s beyond grateful that the train pulls in just as he arrives at the station. He doesn’t want to look back – he still feels sick, and by the time he’s seated and the train has pulled out of the station he realises that he’s still wearing Ushijima’s shirt. He itches to tear it from his body, to rid himself of it, but he _can’t_ – not yet, not with all the other people on board. And so he sits there, surrounded by Ushijima’s scent and soft cotton, consumed with sickness and horror the entire journey back to town. He can’t stand to so much as look at the mountains, or the clouds, and the sticky humidity against his skin serves as only a reminder he really doesn’t want.

By the time Oikawa gets off the train he feels like crying. Tears gather at the backs of his eyes and he drags himself back towards his home, drenched through to the skin, his shoes still clutched tightly in his hands. His heels grate along the pavement as he walks, blackened now by dirt, and he’s eased only by the sight of his house as it comes into view. He could just go in and fall into his mother’s arms, tell her what happened and cry it all away until he’s ready to try again.

And yet.

Oikawa bites back a sob, eyes raw and hands shaking. He passes his house, and the one next to it, and the one next to _that_ – right until the brass numbers are familiar again and he pushes his way through the gate and towards the front door, pounding his fist against it. From beyond he can hear footsteps, and moments late the door opens to reveal Iwaizumi.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa begins, a sob tearing its way from his throat as he slowly begins to crumble. “I’m so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my absolute fave chapter in this entire fic and probably the most therapeutic thing i've written since 'look for him' (which is kind of ironic lbr) - if ur looking for some sweet iwaoi healing go read that damn fic. it's a fine piece of work if i do say so myself B)
> 
> also yknow feel free to yell at me i probably deserve it by this point
> 
> i hate myself
> 
> :)


	6. Chapter 6

_“I am taking this in, slowly,_

_taking it into my body._

_This grief. How slow_

_the body is to realize_

_you are never coming back.”_

_―_ _Donna Masini_

 

* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi looks down at Oikawa, startled and slightly – more than slightly, actually – disconcerted. Oikawa has turned up snivelling at his door more times than he can count since he’s known him, but this time it’s different.

Something’s different.

“T…ōru?” Iwaizumi drags out the name in confusion, much as Ushijima had dragged out Oikawa’s name before, but the tone is different and Oikawa doesn’t feel flustered at the sound of it; instead he feels his eyes sting and his vision blur and he reaches out his hands in desperation, searching for his Iwa-chan, his pillar, before stopping short just before the skin.

“Iwa-chan, I’m so sorry,” Oikawa repeats. Iwaizumi continues to look, just to look, for a few more endless seconds before grabbing Oikawa’s shoulder and pulling him inside out of the rain.

“Tōru, for God’s sake, what the hell are you doing? What were you thinking running around outside in this –,” his voice trails off from tight concern into silence as he pulls Oikawa down the hall and into the bathroom, tugging aside the collar of his shirt to sling a towel around Oikawa’s neck. Iwaizumi’s eyes train in on the large, dark mark left by Ushijima only hours before, one that Iwaizumi can’t recognise having seen before nor having made. Iwaizumi leans in closer – so close that Oikawa thinks in disbelief that Iwaizumi may just _kiss_ him – and inhales. Smells. Oikawa stiffens, realising that the rain had done nothing but make Ushijima’s scent stronger so it sticks to his skin like a cologne. Iwaizumi surely knows by now that this isn’t Oikawa’s shirt. Understanding is clear in his eyes, after all; this time, however, he says nothing. He just looks up to meet Oikawa’s gaze.

“I went,” Oikawa begins, mouth dry and tongue swollen like sand. “I went to see Ushiwaka-chan, to talk to him, but I –,”

Iwaizumi is still staring, though his gaze has dropped to Oikawa’s neck and the setter can’t bring himself to say anymore. Iwaizumi isn’t stupid, and Oikawa knows this perhaps the most out of anybody, so it doesn’t take long for him to piece two and two together. Iwaizumi’s fingers are – to Oikawa, at least – strangely gentle as they smooth around his collar, the broad tips of his fingers scraping over the dark surface of the hickey and the indented curve of teeth just under Oikawa’s ear. With stony eyes he looks up into Oikawa’s face and asks, very quietly, “Did he force you?”

Oikawa’s throat is dry. Despite its quietness, he can hear the rage vibrating in Iwaizumi’s voice – they’ve known each other for so long and Oikawa knows him so _well_ that he can’t mask it, not completely. Oikawa can still hear it. What does he do? He’s all but completely outed himself now and the only thing separating him from absolute destruction was this one, single question. Everything is hanging by a thread.

On one hand, he could say yes. He’d save his relationship with Iwaizumi (but even that isn’t certain) but in doing so he’d destroy his reputation and potentially his career. His father would disown him, most likely, and if the press got hold of such a rumour God only knows what they’d do. But he’d also destroy Ushijima, perhaps even more than he would destroy himself. Could he do that to save his own skin? Could he incriminate a completely innocent person (or... somewhat innocent) just to avoid suffering the consequences of his actions? And then there is the other hand – he tells the truth, he tells Iwaizumi that there was no coercion involved, and he loses Iwaizumi in the process. He’ll be scorned, certainly, but at least he could maintain that nothing illegal had happened. But he’d lose _Hajime_ , and he isn’t sure he could bear that.

“No,” Oikawa croaks, shaking his head. His vision is swimming with tears that once again rise unbidden to his eyes and he can’t keep them back, not this time. He presses his lips into a thin line, shaking his head again. “He didn’t.”

Iwaizumi says nothing. The silence is terrible and Oikawa can’t help but long for Iwaizumi to yell at him, to hit him or to punch him or _something_ – anything to end the silence. He can’t bring himself to do it on his own. But the silence doesn’t end and Iwaizumi’s hands leave Oikawa’s shirt, his eyes leaving his skin. His gaze flickers like a candle, drawn constantly back to the skin of his lover, the marks made by another in his wake, but Iwaizumi tries his hardest to keep his eyes trained away.

“I love you, Iwa-chan.” It’s all Oikawa can manage. It’s the only thing running through his mind.

“I don’t think you do, Tōru,” Iwaizumi replies, voice painfully soft and painfully gentle. His face is frank as he raises it, lifting a little on his toes to press a kiss to the corner of Oikawa’s mouth. It reminds Oikawa of the sealing of an envelope, a closure, a farewell. “You _can’t._ ”

Cold terror settles in the pit of Oikawa’s stomach like a cluster of very small very cold stones. It weighs him down, terribly so, has him wanting to slide to the floor and sink into the ground. Iwaizumi’s hands burn into his skin. This is it.

It’s over.

“Is it over?” Oikawa whispers, unable to quite believe that everything has vanished like a rug pulled from beneath his feet, breath rattling in his throat. “Iwa-chan, please don’t tell me it’s over.”

As Iwaizumi looks up his eyes flash. Wildly, Oikawa thinks, and lurches back a little, shocked. It’s as though he’s flipped a switch. It’s only then he realises his mistake.

“You had sex with him.”

Oikawa’s throat is dry. He’s right. What can he say? What can he say to that?

“I love _you_ , though –,”

“You love me?” Iwaizumi demands, voice suddenly as hot as his eyes and he reaches out to grip the hem of Oikawa’s shirt, tearing it up so it bunches around his throat. His gaze scours over the skin, pauses ever so slightly on each fresh bruise and each raw scrape, each hickey, each foreign fingerprint. “You _love_ me, Oikawa?” He hates the sight of it, of those marks – he wants to go over them, all of them, mark Oikawa black and blue and red.

Oikawa feels a weight gravitated in the centre of his chest and suddenly he’s being shoved back, hard, causing him to stumble past the doorway of the living room. He’s lucky there’s carpeting to break his fall.

“You _love me_ ,” Iwaizumi repeats, though this time it sounds less like a question. His hand, warm and rough and familiar, pushes hard against Oikawa’s sternum, kicking the breath from his lungs. “You love me and yet…?”

Unexpectedly, Iwaizumi kisses him. It’s rough and cruel and his teeth clamp down on Oikawa’s lower lip, eliciting a beautiful gasp from deep within the setter’s chest. “Is his cum still inside you? You let him fuck you raw, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Oikawa confesses in a half-sob muffled against Iwaizumi’s lips as he kisses him back, every movement craving his touch. _Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, I love you –_

“Shit,” Iwaizumi grunts, teeth grinding hard as Oikawa’s legs give way and he settles between his thighs in a position exactly the same as Ushijima had been in only hours prior; Oikawa is quivering, each muscle drawn taught in fear and anticipation, those beautiful brown eyes blown wide, lashes dark and stuck with rain and tears. Iwaizumi has never seen him so beautiful. “I…” he almost chokes on his voice. “I should fucking scrape him out of you. You don’t love me, you _can’t_ love me –,”

 _He’s desperate,_ the little voice in Oikawa’s head muses. _He loves you, can’t you see? He’s hurting. He’s hurting a lot. He wants you, he needs you, but you’ve fucked it all up now. You’re not his anymore, Tōru! You’re not his._

 _Shut up!_ the rational part of Oikawa shrieks in response. _I am! I am his! I’ll always be Iwa-chan’s!_

Iwaizumi tears off Ushijima’s shirt, tossing it into the corner of the room. The nerve of it – Oikawa daring to turn up at his door, freshly fucked and wearing another man’s shirt as a _souvenir_. Iwaizumi’s lip curls in disgust; he knows he shouldn’t be here, that he should’ve kicked Oikawa out until he can think straight again. But he _needs_ him. He needs Oikawa. He never expected he’d need him now.

“Fuck, I _love_ you,” Iwaizumi hisses, hand fisting in Oikawa’s hair. “I love you!” His voice rises to a yell and Oikawa stills suddenly. He lies prone beneath him, face crumpled like an abandoned newspaper, lips pressed into a thin line. “I love you,” Iwaizumi repeats, voice this time little more than a cracked whisper, and he watches as a tear lands on Oikawa’s cheek, running down to the corner of his lip. With trembling hands Iwaizumi reaches up and cups Oikawa’s face, brow crumpling as his vision swims and more tears join the first. “For fuck’s sake, I loved you.”

Oikawa says nothing. He doesn’t even open his mouth; it remains clamped tightly shut and soon his eyes – usually so clear – become blurry with tears of his own.

Iwaizumi wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss that beautiful, devastating face again, beautiful even in defeat, beautiful, beautiful –

“Iwa-chan –,”

“Get out.”

“Please – _Hajime_ –,”

“Get out!” Again, Iwaizumi’s voice is a roar, rising on the curve of his tongue and hitting Oikawa right in the throat. The setter stares at him in shock; he’s never heard Iwaizumi talk like this before. “And don’t ever fucking call me that again.”

Iwaizumi’s weight disappears and Oikawa gets numbly to his feet, going over to pick up the shirt that had been discarded and pull it on again. The act in itself is shameful; Iwaizumi stands with his back to him, unable to even look Oikawa in the eye.

_It’s tragic. Oh, so tragic. Like a shitty drama._

Oikawa rubs his hand over his eyes, breathing in deeply. He’d rather be dead than be here, and yet who else does he have to blame but himself? He should have thought of this, thought of the betrayal and anger he’d seen in Iwaizumi’s eyes; he should of thought of this when Ushijima had pushed him up against those lockers.

 _Iwa-chan – Hajime – I need you._ It’s things like these he can’t voice. He stares at Iwaizumi’s hands and briefly entertains the thought of trying to explain – he decides against it, eventually.

Iwaizumi doesn’t see him to the door.

“Tōru, welcome back!” his mother calls when he hears him enter the front door of his own home. His limbs are numb, his heart cold like a stone in his chest. He can’t feel his own pulse and his skin feels like it’s peeling from him. Peeling paint. His mother comes to greet him with a broad smile on her face, naturally curious about his day, but when she sees him standing at the vestibule by the front door her smile drops from her face like a sack of stones.

“Tōru?”

He passes her silently, not once touching her, eyes downturned and absent as he ascends the stairs to his room. She watches him go and her face pales as she does, but she doesn’t follow him. He’s thankful for that, at least.

_I love him… I love him so much, and this is what I do. I hurt the person I love the most in the entire world. Of course I did._

His legs give out as he closes his bedroom door and he slides down it to the floor, head falling heavily against his knees. He’s limp, a doll, eyes open but unseeing; he can’t feel himself. Gingerly, his eyes close, and he feels a surge of grief so strong it blocks his vision and his hearing and everything closes in on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not gonna lie things just get worse from here


	7. Chapter 7

_“I wanted to punch him and understand him at the same time.”_

_– Shannon A. Thompson_

 

* * *

 

The memory of it all sits upon his shoulders like a nightmare.

And yet – he’s numb to it. Iwaizumi turns to glance at the clock beside his bed: ten past five in the _morning_. He hadn’t slept a wink that night and had spend the most part of it staring at the ceiling, playing events over again and again in his head. Oikawa turning up at his door a mess, wearing Ushijima’s shirt and marked from head to toe –

Iwaizumi can’t bear to think about it. He turns his face into his pillow and lets out a long, low groan. He feels ill, but not violently so; it’s that strange sensation of being only vaguely nauseous, like the faint onset of seasickness. Anxiety, he reasons. Grief, perhaps. _I loved him,_ he thinks, closing his eyes against the cool darkness of the dawn. _I loved him with everything I had._

It torments him. It tortures him. The thought of Oikawa sleeping with Ushijima rattles him less than he thought it would have done; it’s the other thoughts that are awful, that make him want to crack his own skull against the wall just to be put out of his misery. The quiet thoughts. The tender ones.

Iwaizumi has always been a tolerant kind of guy. He has to be, his parents had always joked, to have been able to put up with Oikawa for so long. Iwaizumi dislikes a lot of things, but part of being a ‘tolerant guy’ is that he never lets it show. He’s learned to take things on the chin and continue on unflustered – a talent Oikawa has never properly perfected. But there are some things even Iwaizumi cannot stand; one of them is not knowing everything there is to know about Oikawa Tōru. Oikawa has been the one unrelenting force in his life. Forever transforming, yet forever unchanging. So to think that Oikawa had been keeping this from him eats away at him like nothing else.

They fucked. Sure. Anyone can do that. Iwaizumi, while still being slightly irritated, finds himself shockingly undeterred by the thought. _That_ isn’t what rattled him around so much. But… he’d always thought Oikawa hated Ushijima with the very essence of his existence. So how…? How could Oikawa stand to get roped up with this guy? The guy he hated so much? The guy whose name he’d spit through his teeth, whose face he would scratch out of magazines? After Oikawa had left, Iwaizumi sat on the living room floor consumed with rage, the memory of those marks still fresh in his mind. But as time wore on and the sky grew dark he felt the rage begin to ebb and the fear take its place. His mind was suddenly filled with images of Oikawa and Ushijima, not fucking, but merely sitting side-by-side, or perhaps lying prone next to one another. He imagined gentle touches and quiet words, perhaps even affectionate ones, exchanged between them. The thought was so _strange_ that Iwaizumi had snapped from his trance and suddenly found his wits about him again; he couldn’t imagine it ever happening, not in a million years.

And yet it was. He was sure it was.

They always were made for each other, he thinks grimly. Oikawa and Ushijima, the unstoppable duo – even an idiot could see that much. Iwaizumi bites back the thought of being so easily replaced by someone so much stronger. By Ushijima. Iwaizumi had failed Oikawa so many times on the court – if he’d been stronger, maybe they could have beat Shiratorizawa and gone to nationals. Ushijima could take Oikawa places Iwaizumi had never been able to go.

These are the things that hurt him the most. Comparatively, he couldn’t care less about a quick fuck in the locker room or whatever. But to think that Oikawa’s eyes – his affections – have turned away from him to _Ushijima –_ it cuts so deep he’s rendered breathless, as though he’s been winded. Iwaizumi had always thought his and Oikawa’s relationship was a special one. How does Ushijima kiss him? What would those hands feel like when they’re gentle? How does Ushijima look when he sleeps? Iwaizumi is curious in the most morbid sense, desperate to see what drew Oikawa into the arms of someone he hates so much. He feels a little shameful, like a young child looking into the window he oughtn’t be looking into. What _is_ it? What is it that Ushijima can provide that Iwaizumi can’t? They’ve known each other their whole lives.

He just can’t understand it.

“You’re such a traditionalist, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa had told him when they were in middle school, his voice lilted with a laugh. Iwaizumi remembers it clearly – they were sitting in the classroom, Oikawa sat on his chair backwards and knees knocking against Iwaizumi’s under the desk. “You really don’t like things you don’t understand.”

His eyes had looked so beautiful back then.

They’re still beautiful now, Iwaizumi thinks.

_I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving him._

It brings tears to his eyes. He’s always loved Oikawa, ever since he can remember - their love has been subjected to change, to transformation, and as they grew from infants to children to teenagers their love grew along with them, developing always. Iwaizumi had always thought it was a special kind of love - one of a kind. He’d always thought so.

They’d only been dating for a few months; almost a year. This kind of love is new, so much different from the warm, old, familiar love of deep friendship. That kind of love, Iwaizumi knows, will never leave him. He doubts the romantic kind will either. He’d always known Oikawa was scared of romance – he’d been through girlfriend after girlfriend, but all of his relationships had been upset by his love for something else. Volleyball seemed to be the main culprit, though Iwaizumi had been blamed a few times too. So Oikawa had decided that there was no better idea than to date Iwaizumi, who’d agreed, if not a little gingerly. Because he _did_ love Oikawa, and had definitely fantasised about kissing him in various places before, and definitely more than once. But this love is new and as unsteady as a thin crust of ice; one misstep and it’s wont to crack, as it had done only a little while ago. Cracked, broken, punctured. Deflated. And yet somehow Iwaizumi’s passion swells even stronger in the face of disaster, filling him with a fire he can’t seem to put out.

 

Oikawa doesn’t call.

Iwaizumi had half expected him to, half _wanted_ him to. He’s so angry - _so_ inexplicably furious, even still - but he craves to hear Oikawa’s voice. He hates himself for it. Imagining a life without Oikawa is the stuff of nightmares but the setter still doesn’t call. He doesn’t send a single message. Iwaizumi pretends to check the time on his phone, or to check his emails, but he finds himself opening up his call log or his messages just to check if he’s missed any. He never does. Oikawa remains silent, concrete in the face of crisis. Oikawa, who has never stopped talking; Oikawa, who had texted Iwaizumi over fifty times when they’d fought in their first year of high school; Oikawa, who had always confided in Iwaizumi; Oikawa, who is now silent. It spooks Iwaizumi just slightly, but enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

He doesn’t call for days. Doing so allows Iwaizumi to brood on his anger, to chew his fury like tobacco and spit it into the gutter. Iwaizumi is angry, and yet he can’t find it in his heart to abandon Oikawa like he knows he should. As a boyfriend he’d been betrayed; but he isn’t just a boyfriend. He’s a best friend, too, and best friends don’t abandon each other. Iwaizumi had always prided himself on being at least somewhat analytical about situations like these; he knows, logically, that it will take time for his head to even out. His entire life soon becomes a paradox of wanting to avoid Oikawa like the plague but also viciously wanting to see him again, or to at least hear his voice. At times Iwaizumi would handle his phone for hours, debating whether or not to break the impasse and call Oikawa first. He never does.

Fuck, he’s furious. He’s furious and frightened and ridden with guilt that Oikawa had done what he did. That he’d been messing around with Ushijima behind Iwaizumi’s back. He _hates_ him for it. But… he can’t just be without him. It’s like withdrawing from a hard drug or trying to immediately break off an addiction. It’s almost too painful for Iwaizumi to bear and he spends night after night in wakeful restlessness with Oikawa’s name and his memory constantly clinging to his lips.

“Tōru…” he catches himself mumbling as he hangs in the limbo between consciousness and slumber, the name consequently pulling him out of his trance.

A week passes. Then two.

On the seventeenth day Iwaizumi’s mother sends him out to pick up some tinned salmon from the corner store. It’s there he meets Oikawa’s mother as she stands inspecting various garden fertilisers; he considers ignoring her, but before he can conceal himself she looks up and meets his gaze.

He knows immediately that Oikawa is not well.

Back when Oikawa was six he had contracted chicken pox. His mother, Iwaizumi had noticed rather curiously, developed deep purple shadows beneath her eyes. Whenever Oikawa came down with a serious illness Iwaizumi would notice those same shadows surface on the delicate skin beneath the woman’s eyes; he never saw them otherwise. He sees them now, though, blatant under the harsh fluorescent lights.

She looks at him, blinks, grimaces, and turns back to the fertiliser. He realizes then that a divide has been driven deep between their families, a stake to the heart of their relationships.

Iwaizumi goes home feeling far too cold for summer.

He can’t help but wonder - would Oikawa turn from him completely, now? By ignoring him had Iwaizumi hammered the last nail in his own coffin? The thought of chasing Oikawa away into the arms of another makes him sick; the thought of Oikawa turning to Ushijima in this whole crisis is even worse.

_But if I can’t make him happy, so be it._

Oikawa’s silence is like a disease. It leaves a hollow, a tear in the fabric of reality that has Iwaizumi feeling strange; it’s too strange without him, too foreign, too quiet. Iwaizumi was never meant to be alone – he was always meant to be by Oikawa’s side, and he _knows_ this. He’d never really believed in fate, but his father always told him that there are no atheists in a foxhole. It’s a plague that riddles his body, that makes him sick, and yet he still can’t bring himself to walk those few doors down to see him again. To hear his voice. He isn’t strong enough for that.

He doesn’t hear from Ushijima either, not that he’d been expecting it – it hatches doubt in his mind all the same. Both of them, silent. It unifies them in Iwaizumi’s mind, encapsulates them; they’re together in muteness. Has Oikawa been talking to Ushijima instead? Has he been pouring out his heart to him like he used to do to Iwaizumi? Has he been going to him? Has Ushijima been wrapping Oikawa up in his arms to try and lessen his pain…? As each new thought rises Iwaizumi feels sicker and sicker.

He can’t help but imagine them. What they’d look like together, caught in a quiet moment, perhaps even a tender one. The thought of savage fucking slides from his mind like water from a duck’s back; it’s the love that hurts him. He imagines them in love and a pain so strong stakes through his heart that he’s quite suddenly short of breath; he’s shut out, facing a closed door. Separated. Separated from Oikawa in the way he wants to be connected to him the most.

When he’d seen those marks he’d only thought of one thing. _Lies_. Oikawa had been lying to him. It had cut him deeply but now he looks back upon it with a muted kind of pain. It hurts him that Ushijima had obviously worked over Iwaizumi’s own marks so viciously, that he was so set on erasing them, on erasing _him._ Shut out. Separated.

Alone.

The silence crushes him.

Are they in love? Are they together now? Are they lying in silence, Oikawa’s head resting on Ushijima’s chest, Ushijima’s broad hand stroking up Oikawa’s back? The thought of them talking – of Oikawa confiding his woes and worries in _Ushijima Wakatoshi_ – is even worse. Iwaizumi’s morbid curiosity resurfaces, the cruelest kind of intrigue.

Oikawa still doesn’t call.

“Hajime!” his father greets him on the morning of the twenty-third day. He’s sitting at the table in the dining room, letters spread open on the table beside his plate. “Tōru-kun hasn’t been around lately. Is he all right?”

Iwaizumi looks away, at the letters. “I don’t know.”

“You should find out. Hajime, are you all right?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

He doesn’t eat breakfast that day.

“Mom,” Iwaizumi says tentatively that evening, his stomach broiling up near his lungs. “Do you have a phonebook?”

His mother turns from where she was stacking cups, wiping her hands on her apron. “A phonebook? Why on earth do you need one of those? Oh –,” she smiles amusedly. “Now, Hajime, you’re a strong boy but don’t you try and tear those things in two like those men on the internet.”

“I’m not going to try and tear them in half,” Iwaizumi replies incredulously. “I just need to find a phone number.”

“Oh,” she laughs at herself. “Well then, there’s some in the pantry. We only got the latest copy a few months ago so it should be up to date.” She pauses, nibbling at her lip. “Whose number do you need?”

“Just… a friend.” It feels like the biggest lie to have ever left his mouth.

She nods, smiles, and turns back to her task.

Iwaizumi goes to the pantry, finding a small stack of phonebooks hidden under a box of onions. He searches for the most recent copy and hauls it up into his arms; it’s heavy as he takes it up to his room and sets it down on the floor, sitting before it. He exhales.

It takes him far longer than he’d anticipated to find the name he’s looking for. The book is thick, the paper thin and translucent like the pages of a Bible, rows and rows of names lined up neatly in columns, clusters of numbers printed across the page. As his eyes scour the pages his mind begins to swim, number after number, name after name. And then finally he finds it.

There are a handful of ‘Ushijima’s in the book, but the surname isn’t nearly as common as some of the others. Iwaizumi doesn’t know Ushijima’s mother’s first name, nor his father’s, and so he picks up his phone and dials in every single number in the list, determined to call until he finds the right person.

By the time he calls the seventh number he’s running out of steam. He considers giving up or turning to some other method, but after a few moments of steeling himself he picks up his phone and dials in the eighth number.

“Hello,” a voice comes from down the line, the phone picked up after only three rings. “This is the Ushijima residence.”

“Does Ushijima Wakatoshi live here?”

“Yes, speaking.”

Iwaizumi’s tongue shrivels in his mouth. He’s inexplicably nervous, though he’d never admit it. “This is Iwaizumi Hajime.”

A beat of silence passes between them, and Iwaizumi – just for a moment – can practically feel Ushijima bristle from the other end of the phone. “Iwaizumi Hajime. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Is Oikawa with you?”

“No.”

He exhales, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“I need to speak with you.”

“You are already speaking with me.”

Iwaizumi flinches with annoyance and is surprisingly comforted by the familiar feeling of irritation; Ushijima’s density is really rather endearing.

“In person,” Iwaizumi corrects himself.

Ushijima’s voice is incredibly cautious. “...certainly.”

“I want to get this over with as soon as possible. Is tomorrow okay?”

“Yes,” Ushijima replies almost immediately. Iwaizumi can hear the rustle of paper and a scratch of the nib of a pen upon the surface of it; he waits. “I shall meet you at eleven o’clock at the café near your school, if that is okay.”

“No, not there.” _I can’t be seen with you._ “There’s a park nearby. Meet me there.”

“So be it.” Ushijima’s voice is slow. He’s confused, Iwaizumi can tell, but he says nothing and asks for no explanation. _Does he trust me?_ “I will see you then.”

“Yeah.”

Iwaizumi hangs up without so much as a farewell. He feels sick with nervousness – worse than any test he’d ever taken or any match he’d ever played. He closes the phone book, rubbing his hand over his face and groaning.

“Fuck.” 

* * *

 He sleeps like a log that night for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand. It would make sense for him to be unable to sleep, wracked with nervousness or disdain or anxiety. But he collapses into bed and falls asleep almost immediately and wakes up only when his alarm shrieks from next to his bed.

Iwaizumi knows well enough that he doesn’t have to get up so early – it’s just before seven o’clock, leaving him three and a half hours to prepare before he has to leave. He showers and dresses, going down to the kitchen to make himself some toast.

“Hajime!” his mother exclaims, startled at seeing him in the kitchen. “You’re up so early. You don’t even have school.” She checks the calendar hanging above the stove just to be safe.

“I’m going out,” he tells her as he spreads butter over his toast. “I shouldn’t be gone for long, though.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Eleven.”

She nods, then looks at him a little strangely. “All right. If you need anything just call me, okay? I’m going to pop out to do the grocery shopping.”

“Yeah.” He kisses her cheek before she leaves.

 

Eleven o’clock comes sooner than Iwaizumi anticipated. He leaves at ten thirty, planning to arrive before Ushijima does; after all, he doesn’t want the great lug of a spiker to get lost. It’s no secret he’s got no sense of direction.

However, when he arrives at the park – hidden from the main road by a screen of old, gnarled wisteria trees – he sees Ushijima standing with his back against the trunk of one of the trees.

“Iwaizumi,” Ushijima says when he catches sight of him. It’s strange to hear his name come from Ushijima’s mouth; usually it’s Oikawa’s. Ushijima doesn’t tack on any honorific, and it’s simple, so simple, and perfectly fitting. Iwaizumi approaches him, hands digging deep into his pockets. He just nods, more than a little pissed off at Ushijima’s easiness. He doesn’t seem to be nervous in the least and he stands with a straight spine and squared shoulders, just as Iwaizumi is so used to seeing him. He’s gripped by the sudden urge to do something to elicit a reaction from him.

He doesn’t, which is probably for the best.

“You wished to talk to me.”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says as he eases himself down onto the bench wrapped around the trunk of the tree. The flowers droop low, hanging like tired limbs, their smooth lilac petals casting a dazzling blue light over the sharp slant of Ushijima’s face. Iwaizumi averts his eyes when he realizes he’s staring.

“Is it about Oikawa?”

Iwaizumi’s gaze snaps to him, anger rising hotly on his tongue. Ushijima isn’t stupid – he knows how to put two and two together. “You’ve been fucking him behind my back.”

“Yes.”

Iwaizumi curls his lip; he’s amazed at how easily Ushijima can just admit it. He isn’t in the least surprised.

“For what it is worth,” Ushijima continues carefully, as though he’s taking care to navigate the conversation as delicately as he can. “I am sorry. For the most part I understand it was my fault. It was I who initiated it. I… lost control.” He swallows thickly, Iwaizumi’s eyes drawn to how his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat; as soon as his gaze touches the skin he averts it. Ushijima’s eyes are dark, like honey and olives and flecked with gold that seems almost iridescent – Iwaizumi had never noticed the colour of them before. He looks exotic, almost, with those eyes and the darkness of his skin and the sharp strength of his face. It’s… enchanting seeing him so close. The only other time they’ve ever been this close is across the net, noses almost grazing with fire in their eyes and ferocity splintering through their bones. This time, though, it’s quiet. There’s no longer any storm, no longer any fire, and Iwaizumi wants to touch him, like some fine piece of art.

“You lost control?” Iwaizumi’s voice is cool as he speaks. “Was he that much of a flirt?”

“He did not flirt,” Ushijima replies instantly, defensively, his tone as hot as Iwaizumi’s is cold. “I… I am not sure what it is. We are drawn together constantly into inextricable situations.” He licks his lips. “I don’t know what comes over me when I am with him, but I just feel the need to…” he trails off, unable to find the words.

“Consume him?”

Ushijima blinks at him, then nods.

Iwaizumi understands it. He hates that he does, but he _does_ – he understands what Ushijima means by losing control around the setter, how it’s as though a haze has descended over his mind, the need to hold Oikawa, to touch him, to breathe him in, _consume_ him. He knows it. He’s felt it before.

“And he just let you do it, right?” Iwaizumi asks bitterly, feeling heat rise up his spine at the memory of Oikawa’s ravaged body.

He’s shocked when Ushijima slowly shakes his head. The movement is almost glum, sad. “No… the first time, perhaps. But I believe he was merely blind with excitement. People think I am oblivious, Iwaizumi, but I am not. I can see how much his actions are tearing him apart inside; he loves you. He loves you more than anything.”

“Apart from you, apparently.” Iwaizumi’s tone is bitingly cold, grating harshly against the warm, soft voice of Ushijima. Hearing Ushijima speak so gently – so truthfully – is unnerving and sets him on edge and yet it makes his heart stutter between his ribs. But Ushijima does not flinch. “You knew I was with him, right?”

“I did.”

“Then why did you do it? Do you hate me that much?” He hates how his voice cracks as he says it.

“I was jealous of you,” Ushijima admits frankly, spreading his hands before him. “You had everything. You had Oikawa, and you had him all to yourself. As I said, people assume I am oblivious - stupid, even - but even I could see the love with which he looked at you. I do not see that kind of thing often, and I was jealous of it. I wanted Oikawa to regard me like that, to look up to me like he looks up to you. To regard me as a friend, at least. I am not jealous of you being lovers. I am jealous of you being friends. Or… perhaps both.”

Iwaizumi scoffs, undeterred, and folds his arms. “I thought you two hated each other.”

Ushijima chuckles a little at that, rubbing his hand over his mouth. Seeing him laugh – even smile a little – renders Iwaizumi speechless. The way his mouth opens and reveals a glint of teeth is something Iwaizumi had never in his life thought he’d see, and he’s horrified when he decides that Ushijima is actually very handsome when he smiles. “Indeed, he made his hate quite clear.” Ushijima looks up, then, right into Iwaizumi’s eyes, and Iwaizumi has to bite back a shudder at the clarity of them. “Is it so impossible for hate to give way to passion, Iwaizumi? They say that love is not the opposite of hate, but of indifference. Oikawa has always been passionate towards me, though that passion has taken different forms.” He stares solemnly down at his hands. “It was never my intention - nor his, I believe it is safe to assume - to hurt you. We both respect you and wish to safeguard your emotional integrity.”

“Yeah, you did a fine fucking job of that.” Iwaizumi can’t help how bitter his voice comes out; the sting and the pain is still very fresh.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t reply and continues to stare straight at the ground. What a waste of time - he should have known that talking with Ushijima would get him nowhere. In the end, Oikawa was unfaithful, and that isn’t something Iwaizumi is willing to stand, not even from his best friend.

But then Ushijima leans in and speaks softly; Iwaizumi can smell him, his hair and his skin; he smells like pine and sandalwood and the earth.

“He loves you. He does not love me. Perhaps, in time, he could learn to do so, but it could never measure up to what he feels for you. That much is very obvious to me.”

“Then why did he keep coming back to you if he loves me so much?” Iwaizumi bites back, neck growing hot at the thought of being so subpar in ability - so unsatisfying - that Oikawa went to Ushijima, of all people, to remedy what Iwaizumi couldn’t give him.

“There is a distinct line between sexual and emotional attraction, you know this. Iwaizumi, allow me to pose a question to you.” Ushijima holds Iwaizumi’s gaze, eyes searching for a sign to continue. Iwaizumi nods. “Do you believe it impossible to love – or to be attracted, at least – two people at once?”

Iwaizumi had never thought about that, and it catches him off guard. He sits in silence for a while, thinking about it, before reluctantly answering. “…no. I suppose not. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be possible.”

A silence passes between them again, broken only by the faint whisper of a breeze as it rustles through the wisteria.

“Do you hate me too?” There’s a degree of sadness to Ushijima’s voice that makes Iwaizumi’s eyes widen a fraction.

Iwaizumi opens his mouth to reply _yes, of course I do_ , but his voice stalls in his throat. Does he hate Ushijima? _He’s the one who’s been trying to steal Oikawa from you,_ he reminds himself coldly. All those years he approached Oikawa and told him to switch teams – but, Iwaizumi realizes, it hadn’t been cruel. It had never, ever, been malicious. He’d never targeted Iwaizumi, never targeted anybody with any ill intent. Oikawa and Iwaizumi had merely been fresh from the wound of defeat whenever those run-ins had happened. It had merely been a conflict of interest. _We’re not kids anymore,_ Iwaizumi thinks solemnly. _Maybe he’s right._ Ushijima’s eyes are genuine, and Iwaizumi clamps his mouth into a grimace. “You’re honest, but sometimes you’re a hard guy to read.”

“I do not know if you feel the same way, but I believe you and I are not quite that different.” Ushijima seems a little embarrassed, his cheeks colouring a little, and Iwaizumi would never admit that he finds it rather endearing. “We are not children anymore, Iwaizumi. High school volleyball is over for us, so I believe it’s time to put those transgressions behind us. I do not want to be your enemy.” His voice is slow, diplomatic.

Iwaizumi regards him silently for a moment. “You can’t expect me to drop everything and tell you I want to become friends. But…” he scratches his neck a little awkwardly. “As you said, time could make me see things differently. To see you differently.” He feels awkward saying it. Embarrassed, crooked. The blush on his neck spreads to his face and he squares his shoulders, trying to come to terms with exactly what he’d come here for.

“Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet, and I’m still fucking mad. Listen. If you two are going to be happy together then just go for it. Knock yourselves out. Just don’t do it behind my fucking back.” His voice snaps – he doesn’t want them to be happy together. He doesn’t want to be shut out like that. He doesn’t want to see Oikawa happy without him. But, of course, he doesn’t let Ushijima know that – somehow, though, he feels like Ushijima already knows.

Ushijima doesn’t reply. He peers at him curiously, head tilted a little to the side. “I do not believe that he came to me because he is unsatisfied with you, Iwaizumi. It does not seem right.” Again, he pauses, gaze heavy upon Iwaizumi’s face. “You love him very much, don’t you?”

Iwaizumi is silent.

“You would sacrifice your own happiness to secure Oikawa’s. That is commendable of you.” Ushijima hesitates, then, eyes wandering slightly. “I always thought of you as weak. You and your team could never elevate Oikawa to the levels I could have, but now I realize that while I understand you as a player I never understood you as a person. As a player you are not as strong. As a person, however –,”

“Don’t,” Iwaizumi interrupts him, his voice breaking. “Don’t.” _Make me hate you. I want to be angry at you for what you did – I want to be furious, and yet I can’t be. Fuck._ Iwaizumi’s mind is doing somersaults in his skull and he can feel a headache ebbing on.

Suddenly Ushijima’s face opens in revelation and he sits up a little. “I have an idea.”

Iwaizumi stares at him incredulously. “You have an idea? Congratulations, I’ll buy you a sticker.”

Not even remotely picking up on the sarcasm, Ushijima leans his elbows on his knees. “We ought to let Oikawa decide, rather than trying to figure it out between ourselves. After all, it is his decision to make, not ours.”

Blinking, Iwaizumi considers the suggestion. _Let Oikawa decide._ It makes sense – it makes _more_ sense than having Ushijima and Iwaizumi fighting like dogs over him, anyway. Nervousness rises like a hiccup in Iwaizumi’s throat, a bubble threatening to pop. But he nods, trying his best to swallow his apprehension back down. “How, though?” he asks. “Do we just sit him down and ask him?”

Then – albeit rather grimly – an idea settles in his mind. Ushijima’s eyes are trained on his face, watching each tense of muscle.

Iwaizumi’s voice is flat as a stone. “No – I know exactly what we should do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh dear. whatever could they have in mind.
> 
> i dunno what i was thinking when i was writing this bc my med dosage increased a lil while ago and i am knocked tf out


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no look at that shiny new tag
> 
> i just want to say sorry in advance. please go easy on me.

_“This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper.”_

_– T.S. Eliot_

 

* * *

 

Iwaizumi Hajime, in his seventeen years of life on earth, aspired to do many things.

Making a pact with Ushijima Wakatoshi is not only something he had never aspired to do, but something he had never – not in his _wildest_ dreams – so much as expected to do. Punching him, maybe. Getting into a fistfight? Likely. But _make a pact with him_?

Never.

And yet here he is, standing alone in his room with their agreement still fresh in his mind. The cogs are still turning and no matter how hard he tries he can’t seem to forget that stunning glint of teeth Ushijima showed when he’d grinned.

 _Fuck,_ he thinks as he sits heavily on his bed. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! What have I gotten myself into?_ He flops down onto his bed and presses his face into his pillow before groaning loudly, quite defeated.

He deigns to go over to Oikawa’s house in the morning. After almost a month of not seeing him, Iwaizumi is scared – he’s scared of Oikawa having changed during his absence. He sincerely hopes he doesn’t think of him any differently.

He’d seen Ushijima off at the station, but before he’d left Iwaizumi had caught his sleeve and had asked him if he’d seen Oikawa lately.

“I haven’t,” Ushijima admitted, his brows crumping in a little frown ( _if you dare think that frown is cute you’re gonna have to kick your own ass,_ Iwaizumi’s mind barked at him). “I tried calling him, but it always rings out. I considered visiting him but decided to leave him alone. Why?”

Iwaizumi almost lied and told him that there was no reason. But for some reason he was compelled to tell the truth. So he did. “He hasn’t talked to me either. He… came to me. He was wearing your shirt. I was angry; I snapped at him and told him to get out. I didn’t see him after that. I don’t have the nerve to call on him myself.”

Ushijima didn’t snap to the defensive as Iwaizumi thought he would. He just nodded, pensively. Then he’d left.

Iwaizumi thought it was a little odd how different he felt being in Ushijima’s company without Oikawa there. Previously he’d never seen Ushijima without Oikawa – the setter’s hate had always been so contagious, Iwaizumi’s mind rationalizing his own hate: _he wants to steal Oikawa from you. He wants to steal him._ But being alone with him made Iwaizumi feel strangely safe but also somewhat satisfied. He isn’t sure _why_ , exactly – it’s different, he thinks, having Ushijima’s attention solely on him and not on Oikawa. It’s as though he’s finally being yanked from the shadows into the spotlight; he feels nervous thinking about it.

In a way, Iwaizumi is glad Oikawa hasn’t contacted Ushijima. That means all his fretting about Oikawa turning to Ushijima in his distress were unfounded, that they were false, and it makes him feel a little better.

_He doesn’t love me. Perhaps, in time, he could come to love me, but currently he does not._

Iwaizumi would be lying if he said that what Ushijima had said hadn’t affected him. _He loves you._

He manages to sleep that night, but his slumber is fractured and punctuated by strange dreams that not only feature Oikawa, but also the man that Iwaizumi had recently hated with every fibre of his body.

_Ushijima Wakatoshi._

“You look a little green, dear, are you all right?” Iwaizumi’s mother asks after her son declines breakfast.

“Yeah, fine. I’m gonna go out in a little bit. See how Tōru’s doing.”

She blinks at him, but he’s grateful for the silence that follows.

“Well, then! Have fun. Tell his mother I said hello.”

The walk from Iwaizumi’s house to Oikawa’s, while only being a few doors down, feels like the longest trek Iwaizumi has ever undertaken in his life. It’s hot, too hot, and by the time he reaches the gate it’s as though he’s suffocating. He stands outside the Oikawas’ door for a solid three minutes mustering up the courage to knock.

“Hajime!”

The door is flung open just as Iwaizumi goes to knock, his hand still hanging elevated in the air. He’s met instantly with the sight of two big, brown eyes and a cloud of soft hair. Two arms wind around his neck and he’s almost pulled clean off his feet with the force of the hug he’s quite suddenly being subjected to. It’s Oikawa’s mother who, while not as tall as Iwaizumi, never fails to pack a punch. He’s missed it.

“How are you, dear? We’ve missed you around here!” she says cheerfully, slapping him in the stomach playfully but still hard enough to make him flinch.

Iwaizumi opens his mouth to reply, but as he does so he catches sight of Oikawa standing half-way up the stairs at the end of the entrance hall, arms hanging limp by his side, eyes adorned with deep, bruise-like shadows beneath them.

“Oikawa,” he begins, gently passing Oikawa’s mother and entering further into the house. _He looks different. Like an addict taken off a drug._

“I’ll leave you two to chat, then,” Oikawa’s mother says airily and flits back into he kitchen to resume cutting vegetables.

Oikawa parts his lips, perhaps to speak or perhaps only to breathe; he watches as Iwaizumi approaches him, as cautious as if he were approaching a startled animal. “I need to talk with you.”

Not a word is said as they go to Oikawa’s room. The air between them is tense, palpable enough to be sliced with a knife, it seems. Once they’re safe in Oikawa’s room, Iwaizumi shuts the door and motions for Oikawa to sit down on the bed, where he joins him at a comfortable distance. Oikawa is scared – scared of _what_ , exactly, Iwaizumi isn’t sure – he can feel it rise from him like an odour.

“I’ve thought. A lot. About us, about what happened, about you and Ushijima.” Oikawa flinches visibly at that, but he seems comforted by Iwaizumi’s soft tone of voice. “I want you to come back to my place – there’s something I need to show you. But you have to cooperate, all right?”

Oikawa fixes him with those brown eyes of his and he remains silent for a few long moments. Then his lips quirk a little bit. “You aren’t planning to sell me as a sex slave are you, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi punches his shoulder, his breath releasing at hearing _Iwa-chan_ in that familiar voice. “Jackass.” He stands, then, holding a hand out to Oikawa. It’s as though he’s dealing with a toddler. “Come on, then.”

Oikawa looks at his hand, then up at his face before taking Iwaizumi’s hand in his own and letting the spiker lead him from the room again. “I’m going to Haj – to Iwa-chan’s house for a little bit!” he calls to his mother as they pull on their shoes. He’s a little unnerved seeing Iwaizumi so calm – it merely boils down to the fact that Iwaizumi is trying to keep his apprehension as tightly bottled as he can.

“Be back before dinner, all right? I know Hajime’s parents are going out tonight, so you’re not allowed to order junk food!”

“Yes mom,” Oikawa promises, voice lilted with a little laugh. “See you later!”

The sun is dipping close to the horizon as they walk down the street, casting long shadows over the road. They pass in and out of the shadows, the sun flashing between them like stage lights; it’s warm, golden, and lights them up like honey. Neither of them speak, though their mouths remain poised to do so, waiting to see who will break the ice first.

“I still love you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says firmly. “That’s final.”

Iwaizumi just sighs, though he finds Oikawa’s mere ability to come out with something like that rather commendable. Iwaizumi’s drive is empty; his parents must have left while he was out. He holds open the door for Oikawa when they get to his house, but stops him as he makes to go towards Iwaizumi’s room. It’s a habit – the first place Oikawa ever thinks to go.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you need to show me something?” There’s bright, unconcealable curiosity alight in Oikawa’s eyes that Iwaizumi can see no matter how hard Oikawa tries to conceal it.

“Yeah, but… wait here.”

Iwaizumi leaves Oikawa by the front door and ducks into the kitchen, opening a drawer and pulling out a length of thick black fabric his mother had used to patch up his middle school uniforms. He rolls it around his fist, tucking his hand into his pocket to hide it as he goes back out to stand opposite to the setter.

“Close your eyes.”

Despite the burning questions on Oikawa’s tongue, he does as he’s told and lets his eyes fall shut. His breath is baited – something is weird, he thinks. There’s a strange buzz to the atmosphere that isn’t entirely pleasant; he can sense that Iwaizumi is nervous, and it’s contagious. He’s scared. He’s still racked with guilt – exhausted with it – but he grits his teeth. For Iwaizumi’s sake. It’s only then that Iwaizumi takes the cloth and gently slips it up over Oikawa’s eyes, securing it tightly at the back of his head and checking that he’s left no gaps.

“You said you weren’t going to sell me as a sex slave!” Oikawa protests with a whine, but his voice is crooked, nervous.

“Shut up, dumbass, I’m not gonna sell you. Just come with me.” He takes Oikawa by the wrist before he can reply, leading him into the living room.

The blinds of the living room are drawn almost all the way down – they’re open enough to let the light in, sending striking golden slashes of light across the carpet, but closed enough to blind onlookers from the outside. The room is lit with a gentle, hazy glow consisting more of darkness than of light.

“Iwa-chan, what’s going on?” Oikawa laughs, but he sounds a little breathless and Iwaizumi isn’t sure if it’s from excitement or fear. After all, Iwaizumi hadn’t talked to him for weeks and now he’d just shown up out of the blue, blindfolding him. Of course Oikawa would feel a little scared.

“Quiet, Tōru.” At the use of his given name, Oikawa’s shoulders relax.

The darkness is unnerving, though. Oikawa doesn’t like being unable to see things – as a child he’d disliked the dark and his favourite thing had been the little nightlight in the shape of a UFO. He can’t see anything now and the blindfold is in no danger of slipping from over his eyes – Iwaizumi has always been too good with knots for that.

“If you want me to stop, just say so,” he hears Iwaizumi say from behind him. Then he feels the light press of lips against the slant of his neck, and he shivers at the sensation; he’d been driven sick with worry for weeks and weeks, worry that Iwaizumi would never talk to him again, and now he’s _kissing his neck_ as though nothing had ever happened. Oikawa’s breath is baited; he barely dares to breathe.

“Okay.”

He feels Iwaizumi smooth his palms against Oikawa’s side; warm fingers slip beneath the hem of his shirt, exploring his hipbones and each inch of skin before gently lifting the fabric up to his ribs. “Lift up your arms,” Iwaizumi mumbles against the shell of Oikawa’s ear, and he obediently raises his arms to allow Iwaizumi to slip off his shirt. Iwaizumi’s hands return to his ribs, winding around them so he’s holding him from behind; he continues to press soft kisses along the line of Oikawa’s shoulders, accompanied only by the feathery touch of his eyelashes from time to time.

Then there are hands touching his face, curling around his jaw and through the soft hair at the base of his hairline; for a moment Oikawa thinks he must be dreaming or hallucinating or _something_ , because he can still very clearly feel Iwaizumi’s arms around him. “Iwa-chan…?” he begins nervously.

And then realization hits him like a bus.

He recognizes this touch. He recognizes the hands that are touching his face, his neck; he recognizes the lips on the highest point of his cheek. His body turns cold and he shudders, deathly afraid and confused and he reaches up to flatten his palms on the broad chest in front of him, trying to push away, his breath jumping in a panic. “Iwa-chan –,”

“It’s okay, Tōru,” Iwaizumi interrupts him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be scared. Do you want us to stop?”

_Us._

Oikawa’s heart races in his chest, galloping at a mile a minute, so much so that Oikawa wouldn’t be surprised if it jumped right from between his ribs. Iwaizumi is behind him, warm and familiar, holding him tightly and kissing him softly; at his front is undoubtedly Ushijima, somewhat familiar and yet entirely unchartered. He doesn’t know what to think and he doesn’t know what to do. A kiss is pressed to his lips, first by Ushijima and then by Iwaizumi, before he finds himself standing alone, surrounded by darkness. His hands shake – guilt seizes him, constricting every muscle in his body, and even though Iwaizumi is _there_ and giving him the all-clear, he can’t do it. He won’t. He _can’t_.

He draws in a deep, rattling breath. It’s as though he’s in a dream, _almost_ , feeling sensations that don’t seem quite real. “…no,” he breathes, barely audible. “No, stop, I don’t like this –,” his strong shoulders twist and his hands, previously lying prone at his sides, reach up to wrench the blindfold from his eyes. His eyes are aflame, his expression twisted like that of a child waking up from a bad dream. Iwaizumi and Ushijima exchange a glance through the half-darkness.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, voice pained, turning his body to face Iwaizumi. “You’re forcing yourself. I can feel it. You don’t want to do this –,” his breath hitches in his throat and Iwaizumi can see his jaw set like concrete. “After all, why would you, right? You don’t _want_ this. You’re just –,” his voice breaks and silence fill the room. “You’re just… doing it because –,”

 _Because I love you._ Iwaizumi doesn’t say it aloud but the words hang between them all the same. He can see Oikawa’s eyes through the dim light, gold light refracting beautifully around his pupils.

“Iwa-chan, I love you. But I’m not going to make you do this.”

Iwaizumi suddenly feels very small and very childish; Oikawa had seen in him what he himself had tried to ignore; he’s right. Iwaizumi, right from the moment the idea had formed in his head, hadn’t been comfortable. Who would be, trying to orchestrate a liaison between his lover and the man with which he’d been unfaithful? He doubts anyone would be comfortable with something like that.

He had – naively, he now realizes – hoped to reach an ultimatum this way. He’d hoped to have Oikawa chose between them and his heart rode on the hope that Oikawa would choose him.

Iwaizumi wants to forgive him. But he isn’t sure he can. Not, at least, for a while.

“We need to stop,” Iwaizumi replies.

“Stop what?”

“This. All of this. We need to stop acting like kids and ignoring each other – high school is almost over now so we have no excuse. But _we_ need to stop, Oikawa. This dating thing. I love you, okay? I’ll always love you one way or another. But this has to stop. I can’t –,” his voice breaks off, cracking like a tree struck by lightning. It sounds deafening to his own ears.

Oikawa just looks at him, lips pressed together and suddenly he looks just as sick as he had before, like an addict taken off a drug. “We… can be friends, right?” _Please don’t leave me._ His voice is a whisper, desperate, grappling for any semblance of a resolution he can find. Ushijima, standing a little way away from them, can only watch as the relationship he’d compromised completely falls apart.

And, perhaps for the first time, he feels a little bad. Because he can see how much Iwaizumi Hajime loves Oikawa, and how much Oikawa loves him back. Beforehand it had all seemed like something out of a book, worlds away out of the humid realm of the mountains; he knew Oikawa was involved with Iwaizumi, but he’d never truly believed it. It’s because of that that Ushijima wouldn’t have necessarily minded incorporating Iwaizumi into a relationship between him and Oikawa (even though it wasn’t Ushijima’s relationship to begin with – he doesn’t think of that, naturally). As long as he has Oikawa, he doesn’t care about anything else.

This, Ushijima reasons, is something Oikawa and Iwaizumi need to sort out amongst themselves. He’s already made his sentiments known, but he has also clearly indicated that he isn’t going to give up on Oikawa, and even seeing the pain he’s caused doesn’t make him change his mind; his feelings don’t even shift. He wants him, needs him – whether as a setter or something more. But even though he has no plans on abandoning his pursuit of Oikawa, the pain flooding the room fractures something deep in his gut.

“I will go now,” he says in a lull, making headway towards the door. Oikawa turns to him in a rage – practically spitting fire.

“Don’t you dare,” Oikawa barks at him, stopping him in his tracks. But he has nothing to follow the demand with, no compromise, and all the venomous words die on his tongue. _It’s your fault,_ he was going to say, but it isn’t, not really. At least – the fault doesn’t lie with Ushijima alone. So he bites back all the vicious things he’d had to say and stares at his feet, blindfold still clenched firmly in his fist. Iwaizumi had tired to make things better, he’d tried to fix things – but it hadn’t worked. It would never have worked. It was merely an attempt to prolong an inevitable end.

“I’ll see you round,” Iwaizumi says casually, though he’s feeling anything but casual – there’s a certain tightness to his chest that makes him nauseous, the sudden unfamiliarity and destitution of the whole situation hitting him like a train. _Don’t leave. Don’t go. I love you._

It’s Ushijima who leaves first; he leaves silently, like a ghost, not so much as speaking to either of them. Instead he focuses his eyes, as cold and severe and unreadable as ever, upon the both of them, as though memorizing their faces. Oikawa leaves soon after, most likely because he can’t stand to be alone with Iwaizumi like this, not now. He leaves quickly in case he says something stupid, something that will do nothing but incriminate him further and dig him deeper into the abyss he’d already plunged into. He couldn’t afford that.

He could have gone along with it, of course. He could have let Iwaizumi and Ushijima touch him and sleep with him and whatever else they’d planned on doing to him; the thought alone is enough to make him shudder unpleasantly. There’s a dissonance between the two men and he dislikes it immensely; it runs against the grain, and if a presence could feel like sandpaper, Oikawa highly suspects it would feel like this. It’s unnatural and it feels weird. He could have buckled down and withstood it, of course, but that would have been selfish. Iwaizumi was forcing himself to do _those_ things with the man Oikawa was unfaithful with, and that seems – to him – to be a punishment of the cruelest kind. He may have been in the wrong and he may have been an asshole (something that Oikawa has come to fully and wholeheartedly acknowledge), but Oikawa would never have made Iwaizumi suffer through something like that. Ever.

Iwaizumi doesn’t follow him outside. By that point the golden evening has cooled, the warmth turning stagnant and the chilly shadows of purple and blue lengthening like nightmares over the pavement. He watches Oikawa from the window, eyes intent on his form; he imprints the setter into his brain as best he can, the way he moves, the shadow he casts, the way his hair looks in the dusk light. He memorises all of it, just as a lover would do at their sweetheart’s deathbed.

He tries to tell himself things will go back to how they used to, that he and Oikawa will be as close as ever, even if it’s just as friends.

But he knows, deep within his heart, that things will never be the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see this is where i had originally planned to end the fic but i was lyin in bed one night and thought 'wait. that's unbelievable there is no way in hell this could resolve anything' and got up and wrote this disaster at 3 o'clock in the morning
> 
> if it's any consolation this is my absolute most-hated chapter in this entire fic. this is the pits guys.


	9. Chapter 9

_“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”_

_– Janet Finch_

 

* * *

 

 

He’d been right. Of course he’d been right.

That evening, Iwaizumi Hajime had watched the most important thing in his life walk away. He’d let him go. All the parts of Oikawa Tōru that Iwaizumi had fallen so in love with retreated into a very small and very tightly-corked bottle that he suspected was lodged somewhere inside Oikawa’s gut; wherever he kept it, he kept it secret, and held onto it tight. Iwaizumi would approach him, they’d talk, exchange pleasantries and smile. After their failure at the prelims they settled back into a constant lull of gentle practicing; the team was ready to retire for the year. Except Oikawa.

Oikawa began to train harder than ever; Matsukawa had to intervene soon enough before the setter seriously injured himself or put out his knee again. “You can’t tear yourself in two right before you go on to play at university, Tōru,” Matsukawa had said as he’d taped up Oikawa’s knee beneath his brace. The setter didn’t say anything; those words had sounded so strange coming from Matsukawa’s mouth. They usually came from Iwaizumi’s, accompanied by a swat or a hit. When Matsukawa had asked Iwaizumi why he hadn’t stepped in sooner, Iwaizumi had simply replied that it was about time Oikawa began to take care of himself.

Oikawa’s presence became less and less; it became less of a constant, less of a reassurance. Iwaizumi, by the time they graduated and received their university offers, had almost grown used to living without him. But he still hurt, very deeply. It was a scar that refused to heal.

In the end, it wasn’t Oikawa’s transgressions or misjudgments that injured Iwaizumi. What had happened with Ushijima passed out of his mind quickly enough; that love had been new and unfamiliar and wont to fracture. It was being without him; the spiker had become consumed with fear at the mere thought of being around Oikawa. Fear of _what_ , exactly, he wasn’t sure.

Oikawa backed off without a word. He didn’t complain about it like he perhaps otherwise would have; when he noticed Iwaizumi subtly avoiding him he’d swallowed his dread and bottled it up much like he’d done with everything else, internalizing his pain so deeply that it threatened to become a part of him, vestigial as it was. He let Iwaizumi avoid him, the brunt of blame laying thicker and thicker upon his shoulders until he felt like Atlas; but he said nothing, not to Iwaizumi, not to his mother, not to anybody. Acting, he found out, was easy enough, and much less of a bother.

Ushijima and Oikawa were scouted by the same university in Tokyo. Oikawa, outraged, tried to negotiate _something_ – anything – but to no avail. It was a relief, being able to relive the pointless rivalry. Iwaizumi was also accepted into a university in Tokyo, but a different one than Oikawa, situated across the city. Iwaizumi didn’t plan on pursuing volleyball – instead he’d chosen medicine, aspiring to prevent injuries like the one that had plagued Oikawa for the most part of his high school career.

He found it rather unnerving, being in a city as enormous as Tokyo while knowing Oikawa was there. They didn’t see each other, and while they still had each other’s names saved to their phones it was more an act of courtesy than anything else. They didn’t call, they didn’t text. Iwaizumi, upon leaving his campus, found the city unnerving because while it was nigh on impossible that he would actually _see_ Oikawa, the possibility was always there. He was on edge, always, constantly ignoring others but always watching for that familiar mop of warm brown hair or those long, lean legs.

He never saw them, in the end. He never saw him.

In a way, Oikawa became like a dream. He’d always been a dream, admittedly, but this time it was something different. Instead of being a dream of beauty, in the sense of Oikawa being as irresistible and as ethereal as something Iwaizumi might have found only in a dream, he became ghost-like, hovering in Iwaizumi’s memory like some kind of white shadow. Iwaizumi fed on those memories. _Like an addict,_ he thought one morning at three o’clock when the sky was still dark and the air still cool, the scramble of Tokyo dulling to little more than a constant hum. _Like an addict taken off a hard drug._

Iwaizumi couldn’t shake it.

He _missed_ Oikawa. Still, months later, he needed him. It wasn’t like they just suddenly stopped talking, or like one of them vanished; their separation had been slow and almost unnoticeable. It was a wall that grew thicker and more impenetrable with each passing second. Every thought was a gasp of air, of desperation and longing. _I need him, I need him._ Even if not as a lover, as a friend. At least as a friend.

He still misses him now, in early November; some nights he finds he can’t sleep at all.

“Iwaizumi-kun!” Iwaizumi is woken from his doze by the shriek of his phone; he fumbles for it, answering the call.

“What?” he asks, tone clipped. He rubs his eyes; he must have fallen asleep at some point in the afternoon. He’s still at his desk, textbooks and notebooks and pens sprawled haphazardly over the surface, the only light coming from his desk lamp. He glances at the clock by his computer – almost midnight.

“Oh, I thought you’d be sleeping! Lucky me.” His dormmate laughs from the other end of the line; she’s a sweet girl, really, studying health sciences. She reminds him too much of Oikawa, though. But then again, most things do. “Iwaizumi-kun, I’m not coming home tonight! Would you mind doing me a favour and dropping some fresh clothes off at Yuuji’s place for me tomorrow morning?”

“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?” he grumbles.

“I don’t want to do the walk of shame, Iwaizumi-kun, it’s so embarrassing! Please?”

Iwaizumi sighs heavily. “Fine. You should just keep a drawer of clothes there, God. It’s not rocket science.”

“I’ll buy you ramen, okay? You’re such a sweetheart! Bye-bye!”

With a giggle she hangs up before he has a chance to reply.

Placing down his phone, Iwaizumi leans back in his chair to try and stretch out his neck and his back. His muscles complain at the assault; he really has to stop working himself so hard. But exams are coming up soon as he can’t afford to fail.

He doesn’t really mind doing small favours like this; it gets him outside, which he’s grateful for, and at this time of term he probably wouldn’t get outside otherwise.

With a groan he stands and begins to pack up his things, shoving them away here and there until he can get around to properly cleaning up his desk space later. He knows his roommate has an early shift tomorrow, which means he’ll have to be getting up early to get her clothes to her in the morning. Deciding that that’s a good enough reason to turn in, Iwaizumi gratefully sinks down into his bed; the moment he closes his eyes he’s out like a light.

 

His alarm goes off at six the next morning.

The sun isn’t risen yet, the first pale streaks of dawn only just beginning to dust the horizon. He slams an open palm down on the alarm to stop the ringing, getting up and deciding just to change his shirt before going out, leaving on the jeans he hadn’t bothered taking off the night before. He stops to rifle through his roommate’s drawers, though, picking out a shirt and a skirt and some underwear and shoving them all into a plastic bag to take with him; thankfully he has his trusty old car, which means he’s exempt from having to weather the early-morning rush of public transport.

“Better be fucking grateful…” Iwaizumi grumbles through a yawn, making sure to flick off the dorm lights before leaving.

At this time of the morning the city is only just beginning to wake. The streets are still, comparatively, empty, though are beginning to fill up quickly with early commuters and joggers and students. It’s this time of morning when the shops begin to open their doors and the cafés begin to set out their tables, blinds drawn up and awnings extended. It’s a time of morning Iwaizumi has always loved; it’s like watching an animal waking up. It mesmerizes him.

He delivers the clothes shortly after six-thirty, his roommate smiling at him through the door and giving him 500 yen as compensation; combined with the change in his wallet, Iwaizumi decides it’s enough for a cup of coffee before he heads back to campus again. He has a favorite café, situated exactly half way between two bustling train stations in the central city. Even though the foot traffic was always heavy, the café was never busy, and Iwaizumi could sit for hours watching people come and go like the swelling of waves. He’d developed a strange fondness for people-watching.

Stifling a yawn, Iwaizumi makes his way on foot across a busy intersection lined with billboards and flickering neon lights, lit even in the early morning. His mind dwells on the stack of unfinished projects that currently sit stagnating on his desk in his dorm. But, he reasons, he could use a good hit of espresso before heading back and starting on them again. So he pushes open the café’s door, strangely calmed by the wintry tinkle of the bell overhead, and orders himself a long black with a double shot of espresso ( _I’ll need it,_ he thinks glumly, mind still mulling over his work). The café’s interior is close; too close for his liking, and he takes the little plastic card the barista had given him and sidles his way onto the outside terrace. He walks slowly, turning the card over in his hand and staring down at the numbers, the one and the four and the one thereafter. They swim before him.

The rush of traffic generates a current of air that flows low around his ankles; he scours the terrace for an empty seat, but even outside it’s crowded.

And then he sees it. The hum of traffic turns to a roar in his ears and for a moment he’s certain he’s gone insane.

_Oikawa._

His body carries him over to the round metal table positioned under the awning of the café, near one of the windows. If he’d been thinking, he would have turned on his heel and headed straight home – but as it were, he isn’t thinking, his mind being stuck firmly on the gentle sway of hair at the nape of the young man’s neck. As he moves he grips to the hope that it’s a mistake, that this person is merely easily mistaken for Oikawa Tōru; as he rounds the table, though, he sees the setter’s angular profile and knows that this is anything but a mistake. And then his voice spits out a name that tastes like water to a parched man. “Oikawa.”

Oikawa, chin cradled in his hand, turns his face up to squint against the watery light of the morning; he has a pair of stylish black glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and Iwaizumi finds them strangely endearing. They stare at each other for a few long moments, drinking in each other’s presence and appearance. If Iwaizumi had expected some wild recognition on Oikawa’s part, he’s disappointed. Oikawa merely gazes at him soundlessly. He just looks tired.

“Iwaizumi…” Iwaizumi shudders slightly at the sound of such a formal greeting.

But, then again, they hadn’t spoken in almost a year.

“Can I sit?”

A beat of silence passes between them and Iwaizumi half expects Oikawa to decline.

“Yeah, sure.”

Iwaizumi takes a seat opposite to Oikawa with his back to the door. Noticing the metal stand on the table is empty, he slides his number into it before leaning back and shoving his hands deep into his pockets. Silence, silence – their gazes keep flickering, unable to rest on the other for more than a few moments.

 _He looks ill,_ Iwaizumi thinks glumly; Oikawa’s face is reminiscent of the time in Iwaizumi’s living room when he’d stood between Iwaizumi and Ushijima, when he’d looked sick and exhausted and wracked with negativity. _He hasn’t changed._ He can see the drained gaze hidden behind those glasses. Even after all this time, he still knows Oikawa inside out.

“How have you been?” Oikawa asks a little timidly, pushing his empty coffee cup away from him a little and locking his phone, tucking it into his pocket.

“Fine, yeah.” Iwaizumi’s response is clipped and he has to force himself to relax. _Grow up,_ he thinks to himself coldly. _Move on, for fuck’s sake._

“What are you studying?”

Hearing that question leave his lips fills Iwaizumi with sadness – it’s a question he should never had to’ve asked. Oikawa should have _known;_ they should have deliberated their choices together, and they should have told each other first thing, before anyone else. But they hadn’t _._ He was always supposed to know things like that; horrified, Iwaizumi realizes he isn’t completely clear on what the setter is studying, either. “Medicine. It’s pretty stressful, but I’ll manage. How about you?”

Before Oikawa can reply a waitress comes with his coffee, taking the number from the metal stand and nodding politely before heading back inside. Oikawa waits until Iwaizumi takes a sip of his drink before he speaks.

“Health science. It’s not too demanding at the moment, but coupled with volleyball it’s becoming a bit of a strain.” An airy smile flits to his face but it’s deflated, somehow. “Make sure you take care of yourself, okay? I know what you med students are like,” he adds on, perhaps a little fondly. Iwaizumi’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he replies shortly, averting his gaze and taking another sip of his drink. “How’s Ushijima? Are you two…?” He knows he should have avoided that subject like the plague – but it would appear that Iwaizumi is some kind of masochist, and as soon as the thought occurred to him that godforsaken, _unbearable_ curiosity had him in its grips, and he just couldn’t shake it.

Oikawa pales but tries his best to hide it. “Ushiwaka? Oh, he’s all right… as stupid as ever…” his long fingers drum nervously on the tabletop. “We… we’re not. Dating. Or anything like that. I couldn’t – I mean – I don’t think I could –,” Iwaizumi watches him struggle for words and pity settles in his stomach along with a sharp stab of nostalgia. _I miss him._ “We… we. Y’know. We fuck sometimes.” The phrase stalls in his throat and the sound of it is ugly; even Oikawa flinches. “But it’s not because I like him… not really. I just -,”

“You can tell me,” Iwaizumi interrupts firmly, and Oikawa stares at him in shock. After that, though, his voice settles down from its high, wavering pitch and Oikawa visibly relaxes a little. Nervously, he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We… we tried dating for a little while, but it didn’t work. Something… it didn’t click right. It was like something was missing. We still have sex sometimes; even then… even then something seems strange.” He frowns down at his fingers, picking at a hangnail, lips pressed tight. He knows he’s already said too much. Iwaizumi notices the blue that dusts the tips of Oikawa’s fingers, how brittle his nails are and how thin his wrists look; now that he thinks about it, Oikawa looks something like a deflated balloon, only a whisper of the solid, lean form he used to have.

“Are you eating right?”

“Yes, I am.”

Again, silence. Despite the constant murmur of voices and the rush of traffic, they seem to be completely consumed by silence; even the pigeons roosting in the café’s gutter don’t seem to make a noise. All Iwaizumi can see and hear and sense is _Oikawa_ – he’s on the verge of being completely overwhelmed by him.

He’s sad. He’s sad that he’s not there to make sure Oikawa is eating and sleeping right, making sure he doesn’t stay up until the early hours of the morning studying like he used to in high school. He misses the days where they could be together as friends without this awkward, nervous atmosphere; they’re both walking a very fine line, cripplingly afraid of saying something wrong, something that would throw everything out of balance. He hates the delicacy of it all, hates how sick Oikawa looks, he misses him, he _loves_ him –

That hasn’t changed. Iwaizumi still loves Oikawa, even now, even after all this time.

Even after he’d let his hatred and his rage and his hurt simmer for months and months, he’s still violently in love with Oikawa Tōru. He realizes this now, looking at Oikawa as he shifts around in his seat; he’s still so in love with those long fingers and those brown eyes and those delicate cheekbones. He’s in love with everything, with every fibre and every cell of Oikawa’s body. His breath catches in his throat. Everything he had thought would fade – that he’d _counted_ on fading – had hit him full force, hard enough to knock the air clean out of his lungs.

Iwaizumi can’t bing himself to finish the rest of his drink. His stomach is churning as he stands, hands suddenly cold and shaking so much he has to hide them in his pockets.

“Eh?” Oikawa’s eyes follow him as he stands. “You’re leaving? You haven’t… finished your drink.” _I haven’t seen you in almost a year!_

“I have some things I need to take care of,” Iwaizumi replies – it’s not strictly untrue, he reasons, and as reluctant as he is to leave the café he knows he has to before he begins to crack. He counts out a couple of bills and slips them under his cup, but as he turns to leave he feels an insistent tug on his jacket and turns around to see Oikawa leaning across the table, his pale hand clenched in the back of Iwaizumi’s jacket.

“Ah…” Oikawa looks up at him, eyes big and pale behind the lenses of his glasses. “Would you… maybe like to come over sometime? They’re airing a rerun of that drama we used to watch in high school. Back-to-back episodes.”

 _For God’s sake, don’t say yes,_ his mind barks at him. He has tests to study for and he knows that the last thing he needs is to be with Oikawa again – he’s not ready for it. He knows he shouldn’t – as much as he hates things being like this, he knows it’s for the best. It’s impossible for things to go back to how they were.

“…sure. Yeah. Okay.”

_You fucking idiot._

Oikawa is almost giddy as he sketches down directions to his campus and to his dorm, as well as the time and the date. He hands the slip of paper to Iwaizumi and their fingers touch, sending a jolt of electricity up Iwaizumi’s arm. He tucks it into his pocket and he’s more than glad to finally leave.

His heart gallops in his chest; he can barely breathe, the smell of Oikawa still sticking to him and the feeling of those fingers still fresh in his brain. God – he knows he should be mad, that he should be _furious_ even still, but he isn’t. He can’t be – he’s missed Oikawa too much, he’s _craved_ him too much to be angry. He can barely feel his hands as he makes his way back to his dorm.

When he gets back to his desk, he tacks the note to the wall overhead with trembling hands and sits there, staring at it, for more minutes than he cares to count. The curve of the handwriting is so familiar. He’s missed it.

Even though he has tests to study for, Iwaizumi ends up being utterly unable to concentrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no iwa-chan u fool.................................................. ∠( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°」∠)＿


	10. Chapter 10

_“Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.” – Libba Bray_

 

* * *

 

One, two.

Oikawa counts the steps he takes up and down the length of his room, his steps long and anxious and quick. His dorm bedroom is large enough to walk around, or – in this case – to _pace_ around, and the door is shut fast against the rest of the flat.

He’s nervous.

What was he thinking, inviting Iwaizumi over like that? It had been almost a year since they’d so much as _talked_ and yet Oikawa had the audacity to ask him over to watch a _drama rerun_ , of all things! He’s outraged and furious at himself, but at the same time he understands his motives. He’s desperate. He’s been desperate for Iwaizumi since that godforsaken day – the last day before Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s relationship went into a downward spiral, eventually crashing and burning completely.

Oikawa, sitting across from his childhood friend at that little café, found himself looking at the smoldering skeleton of what they’d once had. He’d had the realization, then, that they weren’t children anymore. They’re adults, now, well and truly.

He sighs and continues pacing.

Ever since the moment he’d gotten back from the café, the adrenaline of their meeting still running high, he’d been almost unbearably anxious. He can’t concentrate, he can’t study – he tried watching television, even going so far as the head to the gym to practice a few serves and even that hadn’t taken off the edge, not even a little bit. And so, in the end, he returned to the dorm and settled for pacing up and down the length of the bedroom. He’d been doing so for the last half an hour, chin sunk upon his chest and his eyes following the dizzying cycle he’s taking around and around and around.

This has upset everything.

Oikawa had settled into a somewhat constant rhythm in Tokyo and even though Iwaizumi still plagued his dreams and his thoughts Oikawa had been pretty sure he’d be able to move on sooner or later (but deep down he knows he’ll never be able to). He enjoys what he’s studying and the university’s volleyball team is everything he’d hoped for and more – it’s one of the best in the country, and as much as he loathes to admit it, the dynamic works.

And then there’s Ushijima.

Despite the fight Oikawa had put up, his end was inevitable. He ended up not only at the same university as Ushijima but also on the same _team_ as him. Even though they’re both only first years they’ve been allocated as starters due to their outstanding skill; it’s strange and slightly unnerving for Oikawa to be playing on such an unfamiliar team, but just like any other team he’d been on before, he managed to suss things out incredibly quickly, pinpointing the team members’ skills and weaknesses and stringing the team together with that singular talent he possessed.

Except for Ushijima.

For some reason or another Oikawa found it incredibly difficult to figure him out. It’s frustrating – for someone so straightforward and unobscure, Ushijima Wakatoshi has proved to be one of the most infuriating teammates Oikawa has ever experienced, perhaps more than even Kageyama Tobio. It’s no secret that Ushijima’s talent is his raw power and left-handed spike – there’s never been anything for Oikawa to figure out, nothing hidden, no secret talent for him to bring out. Ushijima has no secret move or hidden talent. And yet every time they play together he notices something new, little ticks and quirks that make Ushijima’s playing highly individual and fascinating and _dangerous_. Unlike the other players, Ushijima seems to be the gift that never stops giving, and just when Oikawa thinks he’s got him figured out, he finds that he was mistaken.

Despite this – and perhaps the most infuriating thing about it all – is that Oikawa and Ushijima are undeniably compatible. It’s nothing like high school; university volleyball is an entirely different league and playing with Ushijima is a new experience altogether. The first time Oikawa had set to Ushijima he’d felt a thrill run so deep through him that he stumbled a little, but not so much as to miss sight of the perfect spike Ushijima sent slamming into the court on the other side of the net. It had left him breathless and exhilarated to a degree he had never experienced before in his life, his body coursing with so much energy he might have otherwise likened it to arousal. Playing alongside Ushijima filled him with an evil, guilty pleasure that he transformed into snarky comments sent towards the ace, with energy he absorbed and transformed and that only excelled his own skill. For his whole volleyball career it had been _Oikawa_ who improved his teammates, but now he was the one being augmented, and it was incredible. He felt disgusted admitting it, but playing with Ushijima made him feel _powerful._

Indestructible.

After their first official match in the first semester Oikawa and Ushijima had been so drunk on adrenaline that Ushijima had shoved Oikawa up against the lockers and kissed him senseless; in desperation Oikawa had gripped the ace’s face in his hands and sucked on his tongue and moaned into his mouth, and it all ended in a messy session of frottage that left them both with raw lips and sticky shorts. It was painfully reminiscent of the first time they had sex and Oikawa doesn’t even really remember half of it – all he knows is that ever since that moment he’d become addicted to whatever fix Ushijima was able to provide him with. The drunkenness, the blackness and the silence and the mindlessness of it all. He feels like some kind of back-alley drug addict.

Oikawa knows it isn’t healthy, but he’s beyond caring by this point, and he suspects Ushijima is too. They didn’t _work_ ; their bodies are compatible to a frightening extent, but that’s it. There’s a mental and emotional disconnect that they can’t bridge – something’s missing and neither of them knows what it is.

Whenever Oikawa gets shit-face drunk it’s always Ushijima’s bed he ends up in, face smothered in the sheets and hips angled up in the perfect position for mounting, with Ushijima’s hot, sticky cock buried deep in his guts, churning him up and making him insane. The sex is infuriatingly good. It makes things even harder considering that they’re roommates – they share a small one bedroom flat between them on campus. It’s almost impossible to keep their hands off each other, but at the same time Oikawa can’t stand the sight of Ushijima. It really makes things tough. But he loves it and soon discovers that he really is addicted to it. What Ushijima gives him is the best kind of distraction he could ask for.

It’s the only time he doesn’t have to think.

It had turned into an unhealthy rhythm that left Oikawa wanting but content enough to not do anything regrettable. But then Iwaizumi had turned up and everything was thrown into limbo.

Oikawa stops pacing and draws in a shaky breath. The last thing he’d expected was for Iwaizumi to turn up out of the blue and to turn everything on its head. _But maybe that’s exactly what you need,_ that little voice inside Oikawa’s head muses. _There’s something really wrong with trying to drown the thought of your Iwa-chan with Ushiwaka’s dick._ He chews anxiously on his lip. Iwaizumi had haunted him every waking moment since they’d graduated, and he was half the reason Oikawa ended up in a melting, moaning mess in Ushijima’s bed anyway.

“Oikawa,” Ushijima’s deep voice pulls him from his thoughts as the ace appears in the doorway of their shared bedroom. “I’m leaving. Is there anything you need?”

“No,” Oikawa replies, voice clipped. The domestic lull he’s set into with Ushijima – this ridiculous notion of them _living_ together – makes him mad and he struggles not to tack a snide comment onto the end of his reply.

“All right. I may not return tonight. Make sure not to stay up too late.”

“Good,” Oikawa snaps, shoving him out towards the front door of the flat, face flushing with irritation. “Make sure to use protection, Ushiwaka-chan!” He slams the door shut before Ushijima can reply.

Oikawa leans against the door, lower lip still clenched tight between his teeth. If he’s to be honest with himself, the thought of Ushijima not coming back makes him insanely jealous. He knows – logically – that he shouldn’t care. They’re not an item and he has to remind himself constantly that he _hates_ Ushijima – but still he’s filled with this awful, terrible jealousy at the thought of Ushijima necking with somebody in the back of a club. Or the thought of him meeting a nice, respectable girl who puts her hand on his knee, a hand he doesn’t push away, or the thought of that nice respectable girl _kissing_ him, and of him kissing back – Oikawa can’t stand any of it. Because along those thoughts come more thoughts, thoughts of Ushijima leaving and not coming back, of finding someone to love and to _make love_ with instead of satisfying himself by using Oikawa like some piece of meat to fuck. He’s terrified of Ushijima leaving him to rot.

He can’t sleep the nights Ushijima doesn’t come back; instead he lies awake into the small hours of the morning consumed with his own self-doubt and loathing, imaging scenes between Ushijima and a potential love interest that grow more and more violent in their intensity until he can no longer stand being in the dark. He hates that he can’t sleep. He shouldn’t feel like this – he knows he shouldn’t. And yet he feels some kind of fierce possessiveness over Ushijima Wakatoshi that both infuriates and frightens him; he despises Ushijima when he wraps those big hands around the setter’s slim throat, when he presses him back against the door until Oikawa’s breath jumps in his chest, and tells him not to bring anyone back (Oikawa does anyway and fucks them loudly just to make Ushijima jealous – it affords some marvelous sex later when Ushijima pins him against the wall and bites his neck hard enough to draw blood), but he feels compelled to do the same whenever Ushijima announces he’s being dragged to a mixer or something like that. Instead Oikawa feigns apathy; when Ushijima does bring back a partner he very rarely hears anything but the creaking of bed springs and his partner’s moaning. But on occasion Oikawa will catch a throaty moan, or maybe a heavy exhale, and it makes him want to sink into the floor and disappear.

He hates it.

He saw the look Ushijima gave him before leaving. It’s a look that makes Oikawa feel sick; it’s one of understanding, like he’s seeing right through Oikawa and reading him like some sort of goddamned book. Ushijima had picked up on Oikawa’s agitation, he’d seen him pacing and had asked him multiple times what was wrong – Oikawa hadn’t even dignified him with a response. But Ushijima knows something is wrong. Oikawa knows he does. Thankfully for him, though, Ushijima hadn’t said anything about it.

Ushijima knows well enough what Oikawa is going through. But since he has problems communicating with people at the best of times he’d decided that it was something out of his range, all this emotional business – it pains him to see Oikawa slowly crashing and burning like this, and he promised himself that he’d stop things before they got too bad. When Oikawa crawls into his bed and straddles his hips late at night he indulges him, letting himself get lost in the setter’s heady, delicious scent, and he’s really never experienced anything as consuming or as desperate as sex between him and Oikawa. It’s more intense than anything Ushijima has ever felt in his life.

Oikawa looks at his watch. Twenty minutes left. He knows Iwaizumi will show up right on time – he always has, after all, and Oikawa knows he wouldn’t have changed. His heart races nervously in his chest and he goes into the small living area, fitted with a sofa and a television as well as a kitchenette and dining area. The dorm is small, but to Oikawa it’s become a home, as strange a home it may be. He sets about fumbling with the television set, locating the remote control where it had been shoved down the side of the sofa and clearing away the various magazines and other bits and pieces cluttering the space. He shoves all the mess under the sofa and in the towel closet and hopes Iwaizumi doesn’t notice.

Ten minutes.

Oikawa heads into the bathroom, again taking all the clutter (mostly his, unfortunately – Ushijima is infuriatingly organized) and hiding it under the sink. He preens his appearance in the mirror, making sure his hair is right and his smile is believable. While looking at his reflection he notices a strange pinkness in his cheeks and light to his eyes that fill him with nervous excitement. _I’m seeing Iwa-chan again._

Five minutes.

He sets out around the apartment, straightening things that are already straight and organizing things that are already organized. He can’t see that, though – it’s just a matter of giving himself something to do until Iwaizumi arrives, anything to occupy his mind so he doesn’t think of what had happened to separate them like this, or what might happen in the future. He can’t afford to think of the future, not now.

Two minutes.

Oikawa walks the length from the front door to the balcony of the flat, then back again, once more settling into the same restless cycle he’d been ensnared in before.

One minute.

He tries to sit down and take deep breaths to calm himself, but the erratic beating of his heart won’t slow, and he has to stand, he has to _move._

But he doesn’t come.

Five minutes pass – five minutes more of Oikawa waiting, gnawing at the inside of his lip, five more minutes than he should have been. Then ten, then fifteen; by the twentieth minute his heart has slowed and his muscles have relaxed in disappointment, and he can finally sit again, sinking back into the couch cushions. He suddenly feels incredibly foolish – here he is, sitting and looking at the clean living room (that he’d cleaned, he reminded himself, and he would have probably felt proud otherwise, and would have rubbed it in Ushijima’s stupid handsome face), _stood up_. The last time he’d been stood up was in his first year of high school. He’d forgotten how awful it felt, but with his Iwa-chan… it feels even worse. He sighs heavily through his nose.

There’s a knock at the front door of the flat and Oikawa’s heart stops dead in his chest. Is Ushijima back already? Pissed, he vaults himself up off the couch and goes to the door, wrenching it open, a sneer already poised on his tongue.

“Ushiwaka-chan, you asshole, I told you not –,”

But it isn’t Ushijima.

Iwaizumi stands with his hands deep in his pockets, a beanie pulled low over his eyes, his nose endearingly pink against the cold. Oikawa stares at him, unable to move, unable to think. _Iwa-chan_. _My Iwa-chan._

“So are you gonna invite me in or what?”

Oikawa, snapped suddenly from his trance, blinks rapidly before nodding so hard he almost makes himself dizzy. His heart is racing, a grin playing on the edges of his lips. “Come on in. The TV’s just through there.” He points across the room to the couch before shutting the door; Iwaizumi is already removing his coat and his hat and his shoes, and underneath his jacket he’s wearing a long-sleeved but tight-fitting shirt; Oikawa can see the muscle that he hadn’t gotten a chance to spot at the café. Iwaizumi had filled out incredibly, obviously having built even more muscle, arms thicker and chest broader. Oikawa looks away, flustered.

“Sorry I’m so late,” Iwaizumi apologises with the rueful flutter of a smile tugging at his lips. “Traffic was hectic.”

“It’s no problem, honestly,” Oikawa brushes off with an easy little laugh, following Iwaizumi to the couch and flinging himself down onto it. “I’m just glad you’re here. I missed you.” Iwaizumi looks at him; Oikawa knew saying that was a risk, but it had just _slipped out_. He pointedly avoided Iwaizumi’s gaze, taking the remote and flicking on the television, then tossing it to Iwaizumi. “Want a drink? Or something to eat? Oh!” Oikawa bounced up off the couch and towards the little kitchenette, opening the fridge. Inside it sat an unopened six-pack of beer (that Ushijima had bought and deliberately told Oikawa _not_ to drink), which he picked up and carried to the counter, taking out two cans and heading back over to the couch.

Iwaizumi is on the verge of declining the beer Oikawa offers to him, but he decides that this whole thing would probably be a lot easier with alcohol in his system, and he takes it. “Just one. I have to drive home, y’know, I don’t wanna die.”

“You won’t,” Oikawa replies simply, plucking the remote back with one hand and opening his beer with the other. He flicks onto the channel and gazes into the poised face of a newsreader – the drama rerun hasn’t started yet, and they’ve managed to catch the tail-end of the news bulletin. He hears Iwaizumi opening his own beer and taking a long draught of it; Oikawa glances at him out of the corner of his eye and his heart begins to beat in his throat again.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Iwaizumi says, but he couldn’t help the grin that rose to his lips. “This stupid fucking drama you used to love so much…”

“Hey,” Oikawa cries defensively. “It’s a good drama! And who’re you to talk, Mr. Godzilla? This drama is way better than those shitty pre-21st century monster flicks you love.”

Iwaizumi punches his shoulder. “Shut your mouth before I fucking shut it for you, jackass.”

Oikawa whines, but it’s punctuated with a laugh all the same; they look at each other for a few moments, and the air becomes suddenly very close. Iwaizumi’s fingers itch towards Oikawa’s knee, the need to touch him almost unbearable, but just as his fingers are about to brush against the setter’s skin the room is filled with the tinny intro song of the drama. Oikawa straightens up, excitedly but a little awkwardly, wriggling in his seat.

“It’s been so long,” he sighs nostalgically. “And I’m sharing it with Iwa-chan! How perfect.”

“Jackass,” Iwaizumi mumbles against the lip of the beer bottle clenched tightly in his hand.

It’s not just Oikawa’s heart that is beating at a million miles an hour – Iwaizumi can feel his own heart racing throughout every single vein in his body, his blood racing boiling hot in his veins. To be so close to Oikawa, to hear his voice, to feel the heat from his skin… it’s intoxicating. Everything Iwaizumi had tried so hard to suppress threatens to come surging back in some kind of overwhelming flood, and try as he might to swallow it down, he knows he’s only delaying the inevitable. He watches Oikawa more than he looks at the television screen, though justifiably so – Oikawa has grown to be so beautiful. He’s shaken free of the lankiness of puberty, those last inexorable imperfections that stuck by him right until late adolescence. Now he is very much a man, and a handsome one at that. Iwaizumi is reminded of this every time Oikawa moves. Every time he breathes. Every time he blinks. When Oikawa offers him another beer he takes it.

“Easy now, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says softly, taking the spiker by the wrist to lower the bottle from his lips. “You have to drive home, remember?”

Neither of them is really sure when they began to move towards each other. They’d always gravitated towards each other like planets; Iwaizumi had always likened this to an elastic band, because even when he and Oikawa were forced apart, they always ended up snapping right back together again.

Like now.

He sighs when he feels Oikawa’s knee bump against his own as the setter’s body moves with laughter; he’s laughing at something on the screen, Iwaizumi doesn’t know what, he isn’t watching nor is he interested in the drama. He’s interested in Oikawa, and only Oikawa.

Oikawa, at one point, notices the back of Iwaizumi’s hand pressed flush against his thigh. He’s wearing shorts, so it’s skin-on-skin contact; once he realizes it he’s unable to ignore it and his whole body throbs with the need to _feel_ him again, to touch him, to hug him. But he _can’t_ – Iwaizumi is still mad at him, right? He still hates him.

But then those fingers move a little – just an inch – and Oikawa gravitates further towards the other man, the drama suddenly very much forgotten.

“Tōru –,” Iwaizumi mumbles, turning his face to see the smooth curve of Oikawa’s neck. The neck he used to kiss… he can practically taste the skin. Fingers creep over the curve of Oikawa’s thigh and he’s rewarded by a sharp intake of breath from between the setter’s lips.

 _The fuck are you doing?_ his head shrieks at him, brain battling hard against his body, but he can’t stop. All these months he’d been starved of Oikawa and it had made him insane – perhaps he really is crazy. He begins to suspect that he just might be. _You’re supposed to be angry at him! Remember what he did to you?!_

 _I need him,_ Iwaizumi reasons and even his thoughts are hushed. _I_ need _him._

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says nervously, confused at the signals Iwaizumi is sending. He’d expected Iwaizumi to be completely closed off from him, for him to still be bitter about what had happened in high school, but here he is with Iwaizumi cracking open like a cloud on the edge of a storm. He turns to look at the spiker and he’s shocked at the expression upon his face – it’s raw, unbelievably so. Tentatively, Oikawa raises his fingers to Iwaizumi’s jaw to stroke along the underside. Closing his eyes, Iwaizumi leans into the touch, the entirety of Oikawa’s palm fitting against the skin.

“I should be mad,” Iwaizumi hisses through his teeth. His eyes slip shut and he refuses to open them – he can’t look at Oikawa or else he’ll completely break, and he knows it. “I _should_ be. But you…”

Oikawa can’t breathe. His other hand joins the first to cradle Iwaizumi’s face, and in his chest he can feel his heart swell almost to the point of bursting. _Oh, I love him, I love him so much._ Iwaizumi’s eyes eventually rise to meet his own, the spiker’s lips parted and glistening.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve tried. But I can’t.”

Neither of them remember who moved first; neither of them remember leaning in, but suddenly those glistening lips were pressed flushed against Oikawa’s and they’re breathing each other in, hands grappling desperately at hair and at skin, trying to gather as much of each other towards themselves as they possible can. The drama rattles on in front of them, forgotten.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa gasps as Iwaizumi turns his face into Oikawa’s neck, nipping and lathing his tongue over the skin. “Iwa-chan, d-don’t you… hate me…?”

“I should,” Iwaizumi tells him, and for a moment they sit stock still, looking at each other. “But I can’t. We’ve… I’ve been with you too long. We know each other too well. You did a shitty thing, and I should be mad, but I can’t be.”

Oikawa’s face creases as though he’s about to cry, but Iwaizumi kisses him again before he gets the chance. Oikawa’s arms wind around his neck and Iwaizumi lifts him into his lap; Oikawa gasps at the spiker’s rough handling of him, and his hips press down against Iwaizumi’s in response. He groans at the contact.

“Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, my Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whispers against the other’s lips, long fingers tangling in Iwaizumi close-cropped hair. He’d missed this – he’d missed the taste of Iwaizumi’s skin, the smell of his hair, the shining of his eyes at such a close proximity. Iwaizumi, too, had missed Oikawa – he realizes now just how much.

They both know what they need.

“Won’t Ushijima be mad?” Iwaizumi pants against Oikawa’s lips as he wrestles him down onto his back, kissing his jaw and his neck. Oikawa whines, pressing his body up against Iwaizumi’s.

“Who cares,” he mumbles. “I t-told you, it’s not like we’re dating…”

Iwaizumi draws back, looking Oikawa dead in the eye. “That’s never stopped you before.”

Oikawa bites his lip; logically, he knows he ought to be wracked with guilt, but the way Iwaizumi had said it was almost _humorous._

“Take me to your bedroom, Oikawa. I want you _now._ ”

Oikawa shivers at the low growl of Iwaizumi’s voice, struggling to stand straight on his trembling knees. He silently leads Iwaizumi away from the television, fingers tangled in he spiker’s, towards the bedroom. His body pulses and he can feel his heartbeat in each single cell of his body; Iwaizumi squeezes his hand, moving in close to kiss the back of his neck.

“Does he fuck you well?” he growls against Oikawa’s jugular before giving him a sharp shove, sending him sprawling down over the wide bed. Oikawa gazes up at him through the half-darkness with dewy, dark eyes, watching entranced as Iwaizumi kneels above him and peels off his shirt. Oikawa is surprised he doesn’t start drooling at the sight of it.

“He fucks me real good,” Oikawa admits, though coyly, more teasing than anything. Iwaizumi crawls over him, bullying Oikawa’s legs apart to settle between them, grinding the distinct bulge of his erection against the setter’s shorts. “His dick is _enormous._ ”

Somehow Iwaizumi isn’t surprised.

Strangely, though, Iwaizumi is undeterred by Oikawa’s comments. He pushes his strong hands up under the setter’s shirt, feeling each curve of muscle, up until he feels the hardening nubs of Oikawa’s nipples beneath his fingers. He practically tears Oikawa’s shirt off in his arousal and desperation, lowering himself to press his lips to Oikawa’s chest, biting and lathing his tongue over first one nipple, then the other; they swell beneath his touch, fat and glistening and pink.

“Suck me,” Oikawa gasps, pushing his chest against Iwaizumi’s face. “S-suck my – _oh_ –,” his breath hitches as Iwaizumi palms roughly at his leaking erection through the thin material of his shorts, and he draws back, drinking in the sight of Oikawa lying needy beneath him.

“What do you want, Tōru? Tell me.”

“F-fuck me,” Oikawa moans, arching his hips up for effect, the front of his shorts growing sticky with precum. Iwaizumi’s own cock is straining in his trousers, desperate to feel the soft, tight warmth of Oikawa’s hole again. “I can’t wait any more!”

Iwaizumi grits his teeth against a snarl building in his throat; he peels Oikawa’s shorts down those long, lean legs, tossing them aside and bending the setter’s legs back so he can see Oikawa’s pink, twitching hole. It’s practically _begging_ to be fucked. Iwaizumi smirks.

“He _does_ treat you well,” he observes slyly. Oikawa, shocked at Iwaizumi’s attitude towards all this, shivers. “Look how puffy it is… much pinker, too. Like a cunt.”

“Iwa-chan…!” _What’s gotten into you?_ Oikawa looks a little frightened, but more out of anticipation than any kind of threat. His stomach ties itself in knots and he’s never been more aroused in his life. “Iwa-chan, please fuck me, _hurry up_ –,”

Before he can finish Iwaizumi is popping open his fly and pushing his trousers down far enough to release his cock; it sits thick and heavy against Oikawa’s bare thigh, already slick with precum. “Condom…”

“Don’t need it,” Oikawa gasps. “Fuck me raw, Iwa-chan, I want your cum inside me.”

The last remnants of Iwaizumi’s self-control evaporate completely.

He presses the purplish head of his cock against Oikawa’s hole and pushes, his cock sliding in and spreading the beautiful pink rim. Oikawa shrieks so loudly at the initial penetration that Iwaizumi has to slap his hand over the setter’s mouth to muffle him. “So… fuck –,” he can’t hold back an animal growl from tearing past his lips as Oikawa’s insides clench tight and hot around him. “All in one stroke…”

Oikawa, drunk with desperation, rocks his hips against Iwaizumi’s. “Move, move, _move –,”_

Iwaizumi pulls out and then slams in again, right to the hilt, forcing Oikawa’s walls apart to accommodate his size. Oikawa’s hands tremble as he reaches up to fist his fingers in Iwaizumi’s hair, dragging him down to kiss him deeply, sucking and biting his tongue as the spiker sets a rigorous pace.

“Tōru, I –,”

There is suddenly a thud from behind them, and a deep, unimpressed voice cracks the atmosphere. Oikawa’s face freezes in terror, his eyes wide as he gazes over Iwaizumi’s shoulder towards the door.

“What are you doing, Oikawa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit


	11. Chapter 11

_“It was not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame.” – Patrick Süskind_

* * *

 

 

Ushijima stands staring at them, plastic bag clenched firmly in one hand. Iwaizumi cranes his neck to look back at him, his body suddenly as cold as it had been hot but a second ago; something about the way Ushijima is looking at him makes his heart beat hard in his throat and makes his blood turn to ice in his veins. Oikawa, though, seems even more horrified, but his thighs still quiver for a few moments, and then Iwaizumi feels him tighten around his cock, fingers clenching in Iwaizumi’s hair and eyes flickering back into his head for a few long seconds. He’s cumming.

Ushijima doesn’t repeat his question. He drops the plastic bag to the ground with a clatter, flexing his fists, and says in a surprisingly neutral tone, “The meeting was cancelled. I went to the store to get what you asked for. What… are you doing?”

“Ushiwaka, how _rude,_ ” Oikawa snaps, but his voice is still shaking and harsh after his orgasm, his face glistening with sweat. “Can’t you see I’m having sex? With someone that _isn’t_ you?”

Seeing that Ushijima is still (infuriatingly) unperturbed, Iwaizumi moves sharply inside Oikawa, causing the setter to whine loudly.

That, at least, seems to piss Ushijima off. Iwaizumi smirks to himself as he watches Ushijima’s expression tighten, brows lowering over his eyes and casting them into shadow. A shiver tears down Iwaizumi’s spine at the sight of it.

Iwaizumi almost tears away as Ushijima surges forwards, but Oikawa’s legs clamp tightly around his waist, locking him inextricably into place. A tearing pain suddenly flares up upon Iwaizumi’s scalp as Ushijima’s broad hand fists tight in his hair, yanking his head back to expose his neck. Iwaizumi inhales sharply as he feels Ushijima’s face very close to his throat, the mattress dipping beneath the ace’s heavy weight. Ushijima seems focused only on Oikawa, but his grip doesn’t relent.

“Somehow I knew this would happen,” Ushijima rumbles, and Oikawa flushes in response; Iwaizumi can feel the vibration of Ushijima’s voice down the entirety of his back, and his muscles tighten. “You see, Iwaizumi, Oikawa loves you. I told you this, do you remember?”

Iwaizumi’s groans, irritated at the smooth baritone of Ushijima’s voice and the closeness of his body. It’s as though there’s electricity between their bodies. “Get off me.”

Ushijima smirks against his neck. “No.”

Iwaizumi, by now incredibly annoyed, wrestles himself away from Oikawa’s body, ducking under Ushijima’s arm and grabbing him around the neck, tackling him onto his back. The bed creaks beneath the force of Ushijima’s weight hitting the mattress, the breath leaving his lungs in a quiet huff. Iwaizumi’s thighs scrape against the coarse thread of Ushijima’s jeans and he bites back a groan; pinning Ushijima’s wrists onto the bed, Iwaizumi stares down on him, brow knotted tightly.

Ushijima’s hair is darker than Oikawa’s and looks almost ink black in the dim light; what little light there is glances off the sharp, high bones of his face, and his eyes glint, warm and golden, like those of an eagle. Iwaizumi feels the muscles swim beneath Ushijima’s clothes, he feels how _alive_ he is, the raw strength he’d always so angrily admired.

Infuriated and shocked by the sudden attraction he feels in his gut, Iwaizumi pulls back his fist and punches Ushijima squarely across the jaw. _That’s for everything, asshole._

Ushijima grunts, Oikawa gasping quietly, and blood smears across his lower lip as the skin breaks against his teeth at the force of Iwaizumi’s blow. Tongue flicking out, Ushijima licks at the blood, that familiar challenging gleam returning to his eyes.

There’s something about him. For the very first time, Iwaizumi begins to realize and understand what Oikawa had meant when he’d said he just _couldn’t help himself._

Iwaizumi fists his hands in the front of Ushijima’s shirt and drags him upwards as he leans down, their mouths crushing together in a searing, violent, and desperate kiss. Oikawa, sitting to the side of them, gawks in shock.

Ushijima bites at Iwaizumi’s tongue, those broad hands finding Iwaizumi’s muscular thighs, squeezing; Iwaizumi unintentionally lets his hips ride along the line of Ushijima’s own leg, groaning into the other man’s mouth. He draws back when he thinks he’ll pass out from lack of air, breathing hard, Ushijima looking flustered and calmly surprised beneath him. Taking advantage of Iwaizumi’s moment of stillness, Ushijima vaults himself up, grabbing Iwaizumi by the hair again and shoving him roughly down onto his back. Iwaizumi moans into his mouth, the firm bite against his lip prying his lips apart and admitting Ushijima’s tongue. His hips stutter, legs spread to let Ushijima settle between them. Iwaizumi can feel now more than ever the growing excitement between Ushijima’s legs and who, his hands still firmly grasping Iwaizumi’s thighs, rocks his hips, and Iwaizumi’s head tilts back in a rough sigh, his own hips jerking along the front of Ushijima’s jeans. He still hasn’t cum, and the presence of Ushijima’s growing erection puts pressure against his perineum, making him shudder and sending his hips into a subtle, subconscious grinding motion. And then, hands clenching down even tighter, Ushijima’s hips jerk forwards hard, and Iwaizumi lets out an incredibly lewd moan, dick jumping and letting a string of precum dribble down to pool against his navel.

Neither of them, evidently, had expected that.

“God,” Oikawa hisses between his teeth, his previously flaccid cock beginning to react.

“Do it,” Ushijima growls, and Iwaizumi’s trembling fingers move almost without his permission; he clumsily opens Ushijima’s jeans, suddenly desperate to see the cock that had pounded Oikawa into such pliable submission, and he rubs his palm over the bulge that he quickly realizes to be bigger even than his own. Something is intoxicating him – his mind is hazy, aroused beyond reason, passion filling his veins and making his brain practically melt in his skull. What _is_ it? What is it about Ushijima that’s making Iwaizumi react this way? He doesn’t understand it, and if he’d been able to think clearly, he probably would have been frightened by it.

Oikawa’s whine distracts them both; they look away from each other to see him leaning back on one hand, the other stroking his cock as he watches them. Ushijima, growling lowly in his throat, reaches out to grab Oikawa by the scruff of his neck, dragging him forwards to press their mouths together. Iwaizumi is entranced watching them kiss: it’s sloppy and hot and messy, Oikawa’s hands moving from his cock to Ushijima’s hair, pulling his face close and biting down hard on his lip. It’s almost feral.

Iwaizumi pulls Ushijima’s boxers down to release his cock as he kisses Oikawa, closing his hand around it; it’s long, thick, and already achingly hard – he can’t resist tugging it to join his own, giving them both a few firm strokes, Ushijima hissing at the contact. Iwaizumi glares up at him, eyes dark and intent. “I want to see you fuck him.” His voice sounds strange even to him – it’s too breathless, too excited. Ushijima turns to look at him, eyes on fire, before pulling away from him and tossing Oikawa down onto his stomach.

Ushijima, Iwaizumi sees, treats Oikawa rough. He’s not a gentle person – at least not in a situation like this – but it makes Iwaizumi’s gut clench hard. Oikawa moans loudly into the pillow as Ushijima yanks up his hips, angling his back to be bowed in the perfect position to display his hole – the perfect position for mounting. One hand comes down to crack over the curve of Oikawa’s ass, the other simultaneously pulling Ushijima’s shirt over his head. He kicks off his jeans, Iwaizumi fully removing his own clothes, breath coming short as he watches Ushijima press the angry head of his cock against Oikawa’s hole.

“Ask nicely,” Ushijima snarls, and Oikawa pushes his hips back.

“Please fuck me, fuck me hard –,” Oikawa’s voice snaps off in a cry as Ushijima fucks in sharply, the mere force of his thrust slamming Oikawa’s hips down against the bed. Ushijima doesn’t hold back; Iwaizumi’s intense gaze riles him up and makes him feel unbearably hot, and he willingly takes out his sexual frustration on the setter beneath him.

Iwaizumi is stunned by the raw strength behind Ushijima’s movements. He fucks like he plays – without inhibition. He doesn’t seem to care about the well being of Oikawa, each thrust knocking the air clean out of Oikawa’s lungs. It’s like watching the demolition of a building.

_He’s destroying him._

Iwaizumi knows he shouldn’t be feeling this aroused – after all, his sex with Oikawa had been rudely interrupted and now _Ushijima_ of all people is balls-deep inside him – and yet Iwaizumi has never felt so hot, and his vision is almost clouded with arousal. Oikawa is coming completely undone beneath Ushijima’s brute force, unraveling like a ball of thread, and Iwaizumi is not only watching, but he’s enjoying every minute of it. Ushijima is beautiful in the throes of passion, his hair sticking to his face and his cheeks flushed, muscles tensing and writhing, glistening with sweat; Iwaizumi can’t help but feel the tug of attraction pull stronger, and it’s getting progressively harder to bear.

Oikawa musters up the strength to look at Iwaizumi, sucking on his own spit-slick fingers. “Iwa-chan,” he gasps, voice hitching with each of Ushijima’s hard thrusts. “Iwa-chan, come here, I need you.”

Iwaizumi goes to kneel in front of him, pulling his face up to kiss him; Ushijima raises Oikawa onto his hands and knees at the same time, the two working in cooperation, and Oikawa grows limp at the new angle of Ushijima fucking into him from behind while Iwaizumi kisses him deeply from the front.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines again, face flushed and smeared with saliva. Iwaizumi nips at his lower lip. “Iwa-chan, fuck my mouth. I need you inside me.”

Iwaizumi groans at the request as his body practically swells with arousal. He threads his fingers through Oikawa’s hair – almost lovingly, he thinks – before leaning back and letting Oikawa dip his head so he can press his flushed lips to the swollen head of Iwaizumi’s cock.

Oikawa, Iwaizumi knows, is not looking for a blowjob. He’d made that expressly clear – _fuck my mouth_. Iwaizumi keeps his hands anchored firmly in Oikawa’s hair, letting his fingers tighten as he snaps his hips forwards. Oikawa’s lips part just like his asshole had, teeth kept expertly shielded from the flesh. Iwaizumi hisses as Oikawa’s tongue glides over the underside of his cock and he can feel each brush of his uvula. He’s not fully sheathed when the head of his cock hits the back of the setter’s throat, and Oikawa gags beautifully at the contact, eyes watering as he gazes up at Iwaizumi. A few more sharp and unforgiving thrusts into Oikawa’s mouth, however, force Iwaizumi’s cock past his gag reflex and into the tight, hot confines of his throat.

Long hands scrabble at his thighs as Oikawa’s ability to breathe is reduced; he swallows around Iwaizumi’s cock, massaging it with his throat. _This is new,_ Iwaizumi thinks through the haze. “He’s… trained you,” he manages to force past grit teeth, and he detects the flicker of a smile at the corners of Oikawa’s lips. The setter’s gaze is saturated with lust, his face red and sopping with spit and tears. Iwaizumi finds it beautiful, even if it’s in a rather debauched way.

Suddenly Oikawa is forced forwards even further onto Iwaizumi’s cock, gagging and struggling with saliva bubbling past his lips – Ushijima is bent over Oikawa’s back, fingers gripping the setter’s hips so tightly that Oikawa moans in pain around the spiker’s cock. Ushijima cums holding himself deep inside the setter who shivers at the feeling of Ushijima’s cum being released deep inside him, eyes flickering back as he humps his hips backwards to try and get every single drop as deep as he can. He gulps down Iwaizumi’s cock at the same time, trembling hands closing around the base, and a few firm strokes coupled with the tightness of Oikawa’s throat has Iwaizumi cumming harder than he’s ever cum in his life.

Oikawa gags as he struggles to swallow; unable to catch it all, Oikawa pulls back and lets Iwaizumi’s cum smear over his face. Iwaizumi collapses, breathless, against the headboard – he looks at Oikawa, and the mere sight of him looking so disoriented with a red face dripping with spit and tears and cum is enough to raise Iwaizumi’s cock to half-harness.

There’s a wet squelching noise as Ushijima pulls out of Oikawa’s ass; his neck is damp with sweat, torso glistening. Oikawa sinks slowly to the sheets, grinding his still-hard cock against them to try and glean some friction.

“You,” Ushijima says to Iwaizumi, breath coming in ragged gasps. “Fuck him.”

Hearing those words from Ushijima Wakatoshi’s mouth is enough to make him rock-hard again.

Iwaizumi crawls towards Ushijima, but before he turns his attention to Oikawa he grabs Ushijima by the back of his head, leaning in to drag his tongue up the strong column of the ace’s neck. Ushijima, obviously taken off-guard by Iwaizumi’s boldness, shudders and grapples at his hips, sinking his own teeth into Iwaizumi’s shoulder. Before Iwaizumi can get too carried away Ushijima grabs him by his hair again, kissing him roughly before growling “fuck him” against Iwaizumi’s lips.

Finally Iwaizumi turns his attention to Oikawa. He’s lying here, hips elevated, hole gaping and raw and leaking thick cum. Iwaizumi’s body reacts viscerally, and before he really knows what he’s doing he’s leaning down and using his hands to further spread Oikawa’s ass apart, his tongue thick and heavy as it reaches out to press against the ravaged hole.

Ushijima’s cum drips over his tongue as he eats Oikawa out, the setter whining and pushing his hips back against Iwaizumi’s mouth. Iwaizumi had _never_ , not once in his life, expected he would be eating Ushijima Wakatoshi’s cum out of Oikawa’s asshole.

And yet here he is. And it turns him on. A lot.

“Iwa-chan, please, fuck me already,” Oikawa begs, but Iwaizumi can’t get enough of the mess that is Oikawa’s hole; he continues tonguing and probing at Oikawa’s ass, vaguely registering Ushijima settling down somewhere to his left.

Oikawa’s mind is numb with pleasure, but it’s not _enough_ – desperate, Oikawa musters up enough strength to reach behind him and flip Iwaizumi over onto his back, quickly settling down over Iwaizumi’s hips. Ushijima is behind him, kissing his neck, those big hands anchored on Oikawa’s hip as the setter positions Iwaizumi’s cock at his entrance. Once it’s in position Ushijima pushes him down, Oikawa winding his arms around his neck, stretching the length of his lean body out for Iwaizumi’s feasting eyes, and settling against Ushijima’s chest in ecstasy.

“Fuck,” Iwaizumi groans as Oikawa begins to move, impossibly slick and wet and _open_. It feels so different, but at the same time it feels incredible. Ushijima’s hand moves from Oikawa’s hip to stroke down over his stomach, eventually coming to fist around Oikawa’s cock, stroking it slowly.

“Harder, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines, his rocking faster as he slams himself down to try and get as much of Iwaizumi’s thick cock inside him as he can. Iwaizumi, his hands searing from arousal, grab the setter’s thighs and begins to slam into him from underneath, meeting Oikawa’s thrusts half-way. “I’m gonna cum,” Oikawa pants, eyes wild with lust; Ushijima begins to stroke him faster, looking at Iwaizumi.

“Don’t slow down.”

Iwaizumi is constantly aware of Ushijima’s gaze. It’s electric, searing over Iwaizumi’s skin and augmenting his arousal unbelievably. When their gazes meet neither of them can seem to look away.

The influence of the other man’s gaze sends Iwaizumi in a spiral of arousal; he almost considers it a frenzy, and Oikawa’s eyes roll back into his head at the force of Iwaizumi’s cock bruising over his prostate.

Iwaizumi holds himself deep inside Oikawa as he cums – he’s never fucked him raw before, and so he’s never cum inside him like this, and the sensation is incredible. His cum mingles with Ushijima’s, bloating Oikawa to the point of dizziness. The setter can barely think. Ushijima has to hold him as he writhes, cumming at the feeling of Iwaizumi’s cum shooting deep inside him, his own cum splurging over Iwaizumi’s navel.

Oikawa goes limp in Ushijima’s arms, breathing hard. Ushijima kisses his cheek, then his lips when Oikawa weakly turns his face towards the caress. Iwaizumi lies boneless on the bed, breathing hard and only able to concern himself on catching his breath.

Oikawa can feel Ushijima’s hard cock rubbing against his lower back – he moans against Ushijima’s tongue, and as Iwaizumi watches them making out his cock begins to react again.

“I’m sorry,” Ushijima mumbles, directing his cock down to where Iwaizumi still sits hilt-deep inside Oikawa.

“No,” Oikawa whines weakly, but Ushijima pushes in all the same. It’s tight – Ushijima hisses, and he can sense Iwaizumi’s body reacting as well. Oikawa heaves a dry sob in pain, his hips wriggling in discomfort. The cum and spit and the looseness of his hole eases things, but it’s still tight. Ushijima and Iwaizumi’s dicks are big on their own, but put together they’re proving to be very, very difficult for Oikawa to facilitate.

“Easy,” Iwaizumi says lowly, one of his hands rubbing soothingly over Oikawa’s hip, eyes remaining steady on those of the setter.

“It hurts… Iwa-chan, it’s too big…”

Iwaizumi sits up, pulling Oikawa’s legs up into his arms so he can support himself on his knees, leaning in and kissing Oikawa to comfort him.

“It’s all right, Tōru, just relax,” he mumbles quietly. Oikawa calms down after a while, his hole relaxing and letting Ushijima cram in the remaining length of his cock. Oikawa moans at the sudden assault on his prostate, his body shuddering with overstimulation.

“So tight,” Iwaizumi groans; Ushijima only grunts, his face tense over Oikawa’s shoulder. The two of them begin to move in tandem, slowly at first to allow Oikawa to get used to the stretch. When they feel him begin to react they fuck faster, the coupled stimulation of each other’s cocks grinding together and the warm, wet tightness of Oikawa’s hole robbing them of their ability to think. They’re reduced to their most primal urges, their bodies hot and slick with sweat and cum.

Iwaizumi’s hand reaches out to grab Ushijima by the back of the neck, pulling him in so their lips mash together in a kiss again in an attempt to cool the burning passion that’s broiling deep in his gut.

They begin to move faster, faster, working in perfect tandem until Oikawa is screaming and cumming over and over again; his tightness and the contractions when he cums sends Ushijima and Iwaizumi into a frenzy, too, and they cum together with their teeth against each other’s tongues.

Finally exhausted, they sink to the sheets and lie silently, just breathing. Oikawa groans in discomfort, complaining that all their cum is bloating him; once he musters up the strength to move, he goes to the bathroom to clean up. The other two can hear him grumbling from where they lie prone on the bed.

While Oikawa is gone, Iwaizumi turns to look at Ushijima to see that he’s already looking at him.

“I apologise,” Ushijima says. “I lost control.”

Iwaizumi finds himself gripped with a sudden impulse. It’s a surge, like when he’d first touched Oikawa’s leg in front of the television – just like that time, he can’t swallow it down. He rolls onto his side, reaching out to touch Ushijima’s face, and only then does he kiss him softly, gaze intent on those molten gold eyes. Ushijima’s hand slides slowly up the column of his neck, and after Iwaizumi draws back Ushijima is the one to lean forwards again to kiss him once more; it’s gentle, and it’s strange, at least to Iwaizumi – he can understand the violence, or the passion, but to be kissed in such a docile way…

It’s weird. But not in a bad way. So Iwaizumi kisses him again. And again. And then he loses count of how many times he’s kissed him, those funny little kisses merging into one long kiss that’s so undeniably pleasant that Iwaizumi almost thinks he’s in a dream. What ever happened to the Ushijima Wakatoshi he used to know and hate? Ah, but of course – they were boys, then, full of energy and aggression and ambition. Now they’re men, equipped with the ability to see things for what they are, all that fire that used to burst from their skins lowered to little more than a simmer. They’re men, now, not boys. Finally, Iwaizumi realizes the futility of grasping to blind hate, and as Ushijima’s lips move gently against the corner of his mouth, he finally finds the resolve to just let it all go.

“Rude. Move.”

Oikawa, unimpressed, worms his way between them and sighs when he relaxes against the sheets. It’s dark in the room, silent except for their breathing. Iwaizumi’s fingers drag up and down Oikawa’s hip, occasionally brushing over Ushijima’s. When they touch he doesn’t pull away.

Iwaizumi supposes he should be angry. He’s just had a threesome with Oikawa and _Ushijima_ , not only his rival but also the person Oikawa had strayed to in the first place, and yet he can’t bring himself to be mad about it. He doesn’t even feel empty as he suspected he would have. He just feels full, sated, and sleepy. He isn’t sure why yet, but he’s so exhausted that he can barely think about anything except the two other bodies lying with him in the bed.

 _Who cares,_ he thinks sleepily, snuggling in closer to Oikawa and breathing him in, his fingers caught comfortably in Ushijima’s palm where it lies on the dip of the setter’s waist. _I’ll figure it out in the morning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
> 
> sorry not sorry


	12. Chapter 12

_“What's past is prologue, and the world awaits.” – Lisa Mantchev_

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Iwa-chan?”

“Hm?”

“Are you awake?”

Iwaizumi opens his eyes to look at Oikawa, who’s nestled closely under his arm. “Yeah. I’m awake.”

Oikawa is pressing soft little kisses against Iwaizumi’s collarbone, their fingers twisted together on the spiker’s stomach. Ushijima is sleeping like the dead on Oikawa’s other side, one arm thrown across them both, and neither of them move in case they wake him.

“I’m glad you came over.”

Iwaizumi takes a while to reply, playing with Oikawa’s fingers and taking the time to just appreciate being with him like this. “I am too.”

“You aren’t… pissed off or anything?”

“What?” Iwaizumi looks down sharply at Oikawa, surprised at the question. “No way. Why would I be?”

“I mean…” Oikawa bites his lip. “With Ushiwaka and everything…”

Iwaizumi snorts with laughter, resuming his fiddling with Oikawa’s long, beautiful fingers. “It was a bit weird at first. I don’t know… I still don’t really understand it.” He pauses, taking a few moments to piece together what he wants to say. “You know… before. Back last year, when you said sleeping with Ushijima felt right?”

Oikawa nods carefully, and Iwaizumi licks his lips.

“I… I think I kind of get it. I mean – I don’t know what it is. Back when we used to have sex when we were together in high school, it was nice. But in retrospect I kind of realize there was something missing. I’m still not really sure what it was, but this… with him –,” he nods towards Ushijima’s sleeping form “– it feels… right. Ugh, I don’t know. It sounds stupid.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Oikawa assures him, pulling Iwaizumi’s hand back from his face when he makes to cover it in embarrassment. “I understand. Um… I feel the same. And with Ushiwaka it was the same, too. He fucks well, but there was something missing. I guess it turns out the missing part was you.”

Iwaizumi gazes down at Oikawa, and in that moment their loose ends meet and they reach a complete, closed understanding. Iwaizumi kisses the top of Oikawa’s head, pulling him closer. Oikawa smiles into his neck, eyes slipping closed.

“It’s still kinda weird. Why did you get so turned on by Ushiwaka? Am I not sexy enough, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa wines softly in mock hurt.

Iwaizumi laughs quietly, ruffling the setter’s hair. “You’re very sexy. You know, Ushijima told me something once. He said that passion could translate into a lot of things – he said that your passion for him transcended from hate to lust. I guess it happened to me, too. God, I don’t know what it was. I can’t explain it. He just…”

“There’s something about him,” Oikawa finishes for him. “There’s just something about him.”

Iwaizumi nods. “Yeah.”

Oikawa continues pressing his lips to Iwaizumi’s skin, Iwaizumi’s fingers dancing soothingly over his skin. They’re lying in the warmth of their own mutual affection; it’s something they’d both been bottling up for so long that the thought – and further, the _act_ – of releasing it is still a bit strange. “Hey, Iwa-chan?”

“Hm?” Iwaizumi is on the very verge of sleep.

“I love you.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes open. His heart begins to speed up, fingers tingling against Oikawa’s skin.

“I…” _I told myself I’d never love him again._

But promises, Iwaizumi realizes, are really made to be broken. He presses his face into Oikawa’s hair. “I love you too.”

Oikawa only then begins to notice the irregular shaking of Iwaizumi’s body; pulling the spiker’s face from his hair he grabs his face between both hands to look at him. “Iwa-chan, are you crying?”

“No,” Iwaizumi snips as a sob grips his shoulders. “Fuck, I –,” He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, angry at himself for crying like this. “I’m just… being with you now made me realize how lost I was without you. I was always meant to be with you, Tōru. I tried… I tried to convince myself I wasn’t, but I _am_. I know I am. We weren’t… we weren’t ever meant to be apart.”

Oikawa’s throat grows thick with emotion; he’d been stupid, so _stupid_ to think that he could function properly without Iwaizumi Hajime. The two of them were always supposed to be together, and they both know this – they’ve always known this despite of what they’ve tried to tell themselves.

“No,” Oikawa says gently, stroking Iwaizumi’s face. “We weren’t. You and me, we’re made for each other.”

“But we aren’t made to be alone, are we?”

Oikawa smiles at him, kissing his chin. “No. You get restless. I get restless. We both… get restless.”

“Something’s missing.”

They grin at each other, then glance at Ushijima.

Oikawa bursts out laughing, muffling the sound in Iwaizumi’s chest. “It’s just so _ridiculous_ ,” he says.

When their laughter fades Iwaizumi strokes Oikawa’s face lovingly, more than happy to be like this with him again. “But you’re happy, right?”

“Me?” Oikawa asks, genuinely shocked. “I… I should be asking you that question. What are you asking?”

“You, me, and him.” Iwaizumi’s eyes are serious. “You said you can’t be with him without me, nor can you be with me without him. And I don’t…” He glances over Oikawa’s shoulder at Ushijima. “Okay, look. I admit it. When we used to be together it was weird. Maybe it’s just because we’re older, or maybe he really _does_ offer something we were missing. We’re adults, Oikawa. That fucking childish hate we had for him back then might be something I’ve grown out of. Who knows. The point is I don’t _mind_. I…” he licks his lips again, finding them suddenly dry. Oikawa is gazing at him wide-eyed with surprise. “I don’t mind.”

Oikawa is floored. He knows that when Iwaizumi says ‘I don’t mind’ he’s signifying some sort of desire to do or to have whatever he claims he doesn’t mind – Oikawa _knows_ this. And it shocks him. Iwaizumi and Ushijima are two people who he’d never thought could get along – but then again, he never thought he’d be fucked by Ushijima in the first place. And Iwaizumi is right, after all – they’re adults, now. There’s no point to hold onto what they’d been as kids, or even teenagers. Sighing, Oikawa rests his head on Iwaizumi’s chest again, calming himself with the sound of Iwaizumi’s steadily beating heart.

“He destroys me, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa admits quietly. “He destroys me. He brings me down. It’s what drew me to him in the first place – you don’t… destroy me. Because that’s not the kind of person you are. But… that’s not healthy, is it? Being destroyed. I need to be built up again, built up new. And that’s what you do, Iwa-chan. You build me up. You restore me after I’ve been destroyed. Like in volleyball, back in high school… Ushiwaka would destroy me on court. I was raw, do you remember? I would cry and cry and cry. But you built me back up again, every time. That’s why I need you, Iwa-chan. I just never really realized how much.”

“I think you did,” Iwaizumi argues. “You did know. You just never knew how much you need me in respect to _him_. You never realize how much you needed Ushijima, either, did you?”

Oikawa shakes his head.

“He’s a good fuck, too.”

Oikawa, again, bursts out laughing.

“You’re insufferable,” the setter says, tilting his face up to plant a kiss against Iwaizumi’s lips.

“I’m happy, Tōru.”

“I’m happy too, Hajime.” When the name is said they both release a deep, stagnant breath that they’d been holding ever since they’d fallen apart, and in a single shared glance and small smile, they both know that things might really be okay.

 

* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi comes to the next morning woken by the sharp, icy light filtering in through the east-facing window.

He groans, rolling over to shield the sun from his eyes; he doesn’t get far, not with Oikawa’s arm and leg thrown over him. Eventually he extricates himself from Oikawa, who merely sighs and rolls over, hugging a pillow to his face. Sitting on the edge of the bed Iwaizumi rubs his eyes, subconsciously looking around for Ushijima.

He’s not there.

For a second or two Iwaizumi wonders if the night before had just been a dream. But then as soon as he moves his body begins to ache, and he knows that it indeed wasn’t a dream. He groans, rubbing a hand through his hair and stretching with a sigh.

He stands, going to the bathroom to wash his face and jump into the shower to wash off the sweat and dried cum from his body. He grabs the closest towel, wrapping it around his waist. Even from the bathroom he can smell something – food, he realizes, and it smells delicious. Curious, Iwaizumi follows the smell to the flat’s small kitchen – there he finds Ushijima standing in only a pair of sweatpants, the tight muscles of his back prominent and shifting beneath the dark skin.

He’s cooking.

It’s almost unbelievable to Iwaizumi. He approaches him slowly, peering down at the stove once he gets close enough. Rice and eggs and what looks like fish.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

Ushijima looks up at him and huffs with a small chuckle, as though he’s not in the least surprised at Iwaizumi’s observation. “You are probably hungry.”

Just as Iwaizumi is about to deny it his stomach growls loudly, and he stares at Ushijima, mortified, and Ushijima stares back until his face splits into an amused smile. “Can you cook?”

“Better than Oikawa.”

That seems to be all Ushijima needs to hear.

Iwaizumi quickly finds himself in an undeniably strange situation. He stands in Ushijima’s flat, wearing only a towel, helping him _cook_. But… in a way, it’s calming. They don’t speak much, but Ushijima’s solid, earthy presence is comforting. Iwaizumi isn’t irritated by Ushijima, let alone being so close to him. It’s a little unsettling, but only because it’s so foreign.

“This is treason.”

Simultaneously, Iwaizumi and Ushijima look over to the bedroom doorway to see Oikawa standing there, his hair outrageously rumpled, face crumpled in discontent. “Why am I not allowed in the kitchen too?”

“Because you will inevitably destroy something,” Ushijima says without missing a beat. Oikawa turns to Iwaizumi for support, but he only shrugs.

“He’s right.”

 

They eat breakfast on the living room floor, gathered around the low table. The food is delicious, which surprises Iwaizumi, but to Oikawa it’s just routine. They both shut him up when he tries to talk with his mouth full, and while both Iwaizumi and Ushijima find this amusing, Oikawa looks betrayed that he has two people ganging up on him – they all know that it’s not serious.

The three of them seem to fit together strangely well. It’s like a dream, really, especially to Iwaizumi; not only is he with Oikawa again, but he’s with Ushijima as well, and not only that, but he’s _cordial_ with him. They touch each other lightly, casually, and while they both know it’s going to take time, they don’t mind, and from time to time they share private glances that Oikawa isn’t aware of.

“You look better,” Ushijima tells Oikawa, who looks up at him and sneers on reflex.

“I’m not sick, Ushiwaka-chan!”

Ushijima takes Oikawa’s face between his chin, narrowing his eyes. “It’s Iwaizumi, isn’t it?”

Oikawa bites his lip. “Mmhm.”

Ushijima smiles, then, even if it’s just a little. He lets go of Oikawa’s face and settles for just looking at him.

“I’m glad.”

It’s Ushijima who drives Iwaizumi back to his own campus; Oikawa insists on riding along too, even on the condition that he’s banished to the back seat. When they pull up outside Iwaizumi’s dorm the spiker makes to get out of the car; Ushijima grabs his wrist, locking that intense gaze on him for a few long moments before releasing him. Oikawa then pulls Iwaizumi’s face across the centre console to the back seat, kissing him, and Iwaizumi chuckles and kisses him back gladly.

“I love you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whispers.

Iwaizumi smiles and kisses him once more before heading to his dorm. “I love you too, dumbass.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i paid $18 to update this fic

_“Leaving the familiar for unknown terrain is like a death - and feeling this level of finality should snap one back to life for life has greater meaning in the face of death.” – Donna Lynn Hope_

 

* * *

 

“My asshole is so sore it feels like I’ve just shat a couple of bricks. Look! I can’t even walk straight!” Oikawa gestures wildly at his rigid pace. “Are you seeing this?”

Ushijima, evidently, doesn’t find it funny. He looks at Oikawa with his nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Don’t speak like that, it’s disgusting.”

“You have no excuse!” Oikawa accuses him loudly, causing a few strangers to glance in their direction. Oikawa lets out a huff and inches closer, lowing his voice to a hiss as they pass the humanities building. “Did you ask me if you could both shove those fat things in my ass? No! So if I end up with an ass so stretched out I’ll have to wear diapers by age thirty, then I’m blaming you.”

They stop in front of the building Ushijima’s class is being held in and the spiker chuckles once before leaning in to gruffly kiss Oikawa’s temple.

“Get off me, you lug.” Oikawa shoves him off but blushes all the same, mumbling irritably to himself as he makes his way, now alone, to his own class.

Oikawa, for all his complaining and all his pain, can’t stop thinking about it. He can’t stop thinking about Iwaizumi, about what had happened between them – about what had happened between them and _Ushijima_. He can’t focus in his classes. It still seems very much like a dream, and in a way Oikawa feels as though he’s stepped outside of himself. He’s waiting to jerk awake and discover that everything’s just as much of a mess as it was before.

However as the minutes pass he doesn’t wake and he isn’t torn from his reality. Hours pass and there’s still no change. He hasn’t seen Ushijima since the morning, and apart from his friends in his own classes, he’s alone, and a little bit frightened.

He wants to see Ushijima. He _needs_ to see him, just to shake off his bewilderment. He doesn’t like admitting it.

Twirling his pencil in his long fingers, Oikawa selectively ignores what his lecturer is saying, letting his mind wander back to the happenings of the day before. How surreal it had been, just sitting in the cramped dining area of his dorm with Ushijima and Iwaizumi, eating breakfast without arguing. His classmates don’t appreciate his quietness, and they poke him and try to tell him jokes, but he returns nothing more than a few fleeting, placating smiles.

It won’t leave his mind.

“Ushiwaka!” he barks into his phone as soon as his class is dismissed. He’s lucky that Ushijima’s able to pick up – usually he keeps his phone off during lectures in order not to be disturbed. “When do your classes finish?”

Oikawa already knows the answer to his own question, but God be damned if he’s going to let Ushijima know that he’s inadvertently memorised his entire timetable.

“Four,” Ushijima replies. Oikawa licks his lips and hangs up without a word.

Realistically, he’d only made that call to hear Ushijima’s voice. His nose wrinkles with disgust at the thought. He’d call Iwaizumi, too, but he knows he’s most likely in classes, and figures he can wait until later. His heart stutters in his chest at the thought of being able to freely call Iwaizumi again; he still finds it a little frightening, of course, seeing as Oikawa had spent months and months convincing himself that Iwaizumi most likely never wanted to hear from him again. If Oikawa knows one thing, it’s that he’s going to need time to adjust to things.

But he’s excited – the rest of the day passes in a buzz wherein Oikawa can barely sit still, and as soon as his classes end he heads right back to his dorm, sheets of paper spilling from his arms. It’s half-past four.

Ushijima gazes at him evenly as Oikawa bursts in the front door, going to toss down his things on the bed before heading back out to the living area to cast himself in an exhausted heap on the couch. His eyes slide shut and he sighs heavily through his nose.

It’s at this time Ushijima usually asks how his day was. But today Oikawa hears nothing but silence – perhaps he’d missed it? Opening his eyes, Oikawa sits up, and is immediately met with the most bizarre sight he’s seen yet.

“Ushiwaka-chan, what are you down there for?”

Ushijima, folded in a low bow before him, does not raise his head. He only says, “I’m sorry,” his voice muffled by his posture. It’s so ridiculous that Oikawa struggles not to burst out laughing.

“I always knew you were an idiot, Usiwaka-chan, but this is really something else! May I ask what exactly you’re apologizing for? Not that you don’t owe me an apology every day for the rest of your life, of course.” Oikawa would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the sight of Ushijima Wakatoshi on the floor in front of him, bent deep into a respectful bow. Still, he fished his phone out of his pocket, twisted around and winked at the camera, snapping a photo of himself with Ushijima bowing on the floor behind him. _That’s one for the books._

Ushijima raises his head to look at the setter; his face is tight with an expression Oikawa can’t describe as anything else other than rueful. He’s a little rattled by it.

“For what I did last night. I should not have disturbed you as I did.”

Oikawa pauses for thought. He tilts his head first to one side, then the other, gnawing on his lip before scooting over and patting the couch beside him. “If we’re gonna talk about this then you might as well get up. You’ll get kicked off the team if your knees get bad, even if it _is_ because you’ve been kneeling for me.” His complacency is a drop of honey on the back of his tongue. Ushijima silently gets to his feet, the couch sighing under his weight as he sits. Those dark, thick hands sit laced between his knees, and Oikawa can sense – perhaps for the first time in his life, he realizes – _nervousness._

“Ushiwaka-chan, you really feel bad, huh?” Oikawa sings, voice riding high and lilted as he teases. “Man, no doubt. You can’t just walk in on people when they’re fucking and join in on the fun! This is unbelievable, even for you!”

Ushijima, apparently, doesn’t realize he’s being made fun of. The crease between his brows deepens and his hands tighten. “I am sorry.”

Oikawa sighs, exasperated, sinking back into the cushions. They sit silent for a moment before Oikawa says, “You really are hopeless.”

He half expects Ushijima to apologise again. He doesn’t.

“I’m just teasing you.”

Ushijima is silent for a few more moments, his gaze intent on the carpet before turning to Oikawa’s face. He looks at him with an expression Oikawa is incredibly familiar with.

“May I voice an observation?”

“Go for it.”

The spiker pauses again, just for the briefest of moments. “Last night you did not seem as aggressive as you usually do during sex.”

Oikawa’s lips flatten into a thin smile. Certainly, there’d been none of the biting and scratching and screaming Ushijima was quite used to; Oikawa had become less violent and more pliable. Usually when they slept together Oikawa _was_ aggressive, demanding Ushijima to treat him rougher, to throw him around, to debase and humiliate. He hadn’t expected Ushijima to cotton onto it, though. With a chuckle Oikawa breaks their gaze and looks towards the window. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

Oikawa licks his teeth; he doesn’t exactly feel uncomfortable, but the question settles crookedly in his throat like some kind of pill taken without water. “Because…”

“Because Iwaizumi was there,” Ushijima finishes quietly, finishes _for_ him. Oikawa doesn’t nod, but Ushijima knows it’s true. Oikawa knows he knows. “You enjoyed me hurting you because you were trying not to think of him. But now he was there you had no reason to be hurt.”

“Boo, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa snaps. “Don’t you enjoy my masochistic tendencies? Since you’re a sadist and all, obviously.”

“I did not say I didn’t like it.”

Oikawa glares at him, then averts his gaze again, eyes wandering from Ushijima’s face to the negative space around it then back again, like clockwork.

“Yeah. You’re not wrong, I guess. I –,” His voice bites back into his throat, snagging on the back of his tongue. Hazy eyes return to Ushijima’s and Oikawa tilts his head owlishly. “Why didn’t you leave?”

Ushijima blinks. This isn’t something he’s thought very hard about, evidently. “I…” It’s amusing to see Ushijima struggling for words. The man frowns again, then his cheeks flush and the muscles of his face tighten as he clenches his jaw. “My immediate reaction to seeing you having sex with somebody else was to intervene.”

Oikawa, shocked, lets out a laugh. “ _Really_ , Ushiwaka? You really never cease to amaze me.” He’s a little offended, actually, though the primal undertone of Ushijima’s voice made something inside him clench; he stands up, heading towards the bathroom. The couch squeals from behind him as Ushijima gets up to follow him.

Their bathroom is small to begin with, but with two fully-grown athletes crammed inside it it’s almost unbearable.

“If you would let me _finish_ , Oikawa,” Ushijima continues, voice clipped; Oikawa is caught between Ushijima’s body and the tiled wall, and since he quickly realizes he can’t escape, he settles for a petulant glare and folded arms to act as a buffer between them. One of the spiker’s thick, warm hands grazes up Oikawa’s chest to settle at the base of his throat, the pads of his fingers gently closing and pressing into the flesh. Oikawa’s groin flutters. “You shouldn’t act as though this is some kind of surprise. Do you think I was unaware of the reason you always bring back anonymous men? Do you think me really so oblivious that I wouldn’t realize why you’d have them fuck you against the wall, or in plain sight, or where I could clearly hear you scream? Or when you put yourself in my presence with cum dribbling down your thighs, the smell of another man on you…” Oikawa makes to bite back a reply, but the hand at his throat tightens further and the words die against his teeth. Ushijima frowns, lip curling deliciously up over his teeth. “Do you take me for a complete idiot?”

“You _are_ an idiot,” Oikawa hisses as Ushijima’s thumb digs into the underside of his chin, forcing his face up. “You get so jealous, it’s pathetic.”

It’s then Ushijima kisses him. It’s hard, but not violent; their lips remain closed and comparatively it’s a kiss that’s almost innocent, in a sense. But then Oikawa sighs, his lips opening, all his rage dissolving into the overwhelming presence of Ushijima Wakatoshi. Their rivalry isn’t something they can let die, they’re both very aware of that – but they don’t mind it, not really. They’ll always butt heads, no matter how perfect they turn out to be for one another, merely because of their pride.

Ushijima’s tongue presses hot and wet into Oikawa’s mouth, violating it in that familiar, dominating way; Oikawa’s fingers flutter as they fist in the front of Ushijima’s shirt, yanking him closer and hoping Ushijima can’t detect the low moan Oikawa presses into his mouth. His own mouth grows wetter, slicker, and their lips grow flushed and wet with saliva. Their bodies are pressed flushed together in the tiny bathroom, and if Oikawa is to lift his eyes a little he’s able to see his own reflection in the mirror; what he sees is arousing. His face is flushed, eyes hooded, even if it’s just from a _kiss_ – Ushijima grips his jaw hard, pulling their lips apart to glare down at him, those bright golden eyes dark and heated.

“You’re like a dog,” Oikawa murmurs against Ushjima’s lower lip, taking it between his teeth and tugging on it harshly. “You should learn not to be so possessive. You can’t just piss on something to mark your territory.”

Ushijima merely grunts in response, using his strong hands to wrestle Oikawa around so he’s pressed over the counter, his face inches from the mirror. He whimpers a little in pain at the force of Ushijima’s fingers, but it shoots down his spine in a distinct wave of pleasure. Impatiently, he pushes his ass out back against Ushijima’s hands and is rewarded when his jeans are unceremoniously yanked down to his knees.

“Look at yourself,” Ushijima snarls, one hand fisting in Oikawa’s hair and forcing the setter’s head back so he can look at his reflection in the mirror. He looks a bit of a mess, admittedly, with his scarlet cheeks and rumpled hair and kiss-swollen lips. “You expect me to believe you don’t like me being possessive of you?”

Oikawa’s grin borders on feral.

They fuck hard and fast and messily. Admittedly, Oikawa and Ushijima have never had clean or gentle sex and this time is no different – Ushijima’s cock is impossibly thick and sticky as he pushes it inside Oikawa with minimal preparation, his broad palm the only thing muffling Oikawa’s shrieks; dry entries like this are never easy – for either of them – but they’re so _arousing_. Ushijima loves watching Oikawa squirm in pain under the force of his cock and Oikawa loves the feeling of being split open by it.

Ushijima forces Oikawa to look at his own reflection throughout the whole ordeal, to watch as his whole body begins to melt against Ushijima’s brutal, crushing touch, to watch as his arms begin to shake in the effort of keeping himself up, to watch as the drool drips in long strings from his chin, to watch as Ushijima fucks hard into him while choking him, hard.

“You enjoy it,” Ushijima breathes against the shell of Oikawa’s ear, meeting the setter’s gaze in the mirror. “You enjoy it when I mount and claim you like this, don’t you? _Admit it_.” The last part sounds like a threat and Oikawa shivers, pushing his hips back to meet each of Ushijima’s bruising thrusts.

“Yes,” Oikawa gasps, his voice hoarse and rattling as he struggles to breathe. His body bows in submission, completely pliant and reactive to Ushijima; his head rests against the spiker’s broad shoulder, mouth searching for the thick, tanned column of his neck – the change in angle presses Ushijima’s cock even deeper inside Oikawa, and they both groan harshly at the sensation. Oikawa’s eyes fail to stay open.

Oikawa feels ecstatic. Something feels different, this time, different than before. Ushijima is no gentler than usual – hell, he’s choking half the life out of Oikawa, but it’s _different._ Where he had before been rapt with guilt and loathing – both for himself and for Ushijima – now he was in the grips of some foreign kind of bliss; where his head had previously been as heavy as concrete it’s now light, right to the point where he feels a little like he’ll faint; he bucks back hard against Ushijima’s cock, forcing it deeper inside him, stretching the spongy rim of his hole wider until the wiry, dark hairs of Ushijima’s groin rub against the sensitive skin of his entrance. “Fuck me harder,” he begs breathlessly, “I love it, _fuck_ – please –,”

He howls when Ushijima’s hand passes over the curve of his ass in a sharp slap. “Do that again,” he murmurs around his swollen tongue. Ushijima, bending Oikawa back over the counter again, obliges until the setter’s ass is so red its bordering on purple, legs shaking and cock dripping.

“You are mine, Oikawa,” the spiker growls; his entire body vibrates with the sound. “You know this as well as I do. You couldn’t leave me.” _Admit it_ – again Oikawa is faced with that succulent threat, the promise of violence. The promise of complete satisfaction.

“I know,” he sobs in response, barely able to talk; his words are slurred together to the point – almost – of being completely abstract. “I am, I am, please –,” Ushijima begins to fuck him harder, angling himself perfectly so the broad head of his cock hits against Oikawa’s engorged prostate with every thrust, sending the setter off screaming.

“Cum for me,” Ushijima demands, bending his powerful body over Oikawa’s and using a hand to angle Oikawa’s face towards the mirror again. “Watch yourself cum for me.”

The sight of himself getting so roughly fucked by Ushijima is more than enough to send him over the edge. Oikawa’s body hunches, then bows, his orgasm so intense he can barely make a noise; his fingernails dig into Ushijima’s arm hard enough to draw blood. He feels boneless as he collapses against the counter, cheek pressed to the mirror. Ushijima continues to pound into him, Oikawa’s mind gradually failing to work as the spiker fucks into his pliant, over-stimulated body.

Ushijima grunts and Oikawa knows he’s close. His weak fingers fumble as he tries to raise himself from where he stands bent over with his cheek pressed to the mirror, glass fogging with his hot, wet breath. “…mouth,” he gasps, lips trembling, and Ushijima understands – he yanks Oikawa back by the hair, forcing the setter to his knees and grasping his jaw with the free hand. Oikawa’s mouth opens immediately, the raw head of Ushijima’s cock pushing past those delicious swollen lips and into the tight, wet heat of Oikawa’s mouth.

He’d taught Oikawa how to use his mouth properly. For some reason Ushijima had expected Oikawa to already know how to give a blowjob, but apparently even though Oikawa did indeed seem to possess a very particular talent in the realm of oral, he still needed to be taught. Or ‘trained’, as Iwaizumi had said. Now Oikawa dutifully uses his tongue and the muscles of his throat to milk every drop of cum from Ushijima’s cock, keeping his teeth tucked neatly out of the way (not that Ushijima didn’t enjoy the occasional pinch, of course). His cum is thick and potent as it spills over Oikawa’s tongue, the setter swallowing it down as though he’s born for it. Ushijima doesn’t usually opt for cumming down Oikawa’s throat – as far as he’s concerned it’s a waste of cum that could otherwise be pushed deep into Oikawa’s insides, though Ushijima has to remind himself constantly that no matter how deep he pushes or how powerful his seed may be, he can’t claim him in the way he could claim a woman. He finds it a little disappointing but, on the whole, reasons that it’s probably for the best, since if Oikawa had the ability to be impregnated then they would have rather too many children on their hands by this point.

Oikawa moans around Ushijima’s cock as he swallows, the bitter cum viscous as he does so. He’s developed a taste for it, like fine wine, he supposes. It’s easy enough to get drunk on, that’s for sure.

Ushijima’s hand fists tight in Oikawa’s hair as the setter gazes up at him with hooded eyes, those beautiful irises peeking demurely from beneath thick lashes. Ushijima leans back against the wall when Oikawa finally pops off his cock, his hand gentle stroking down Oikawa’s face. The setter brings his fingers to his lips, catching what little cum had spilled and tucking it back against his tongue. With a heavy sigh Ushijima sits down on the edge of the bath, reaching to his left to set the water running.

He helps Oikawa peel his clothes off before removing his own, looing over his shoulder every now and again to check the level of the water. By the time Ushijima shuts off the bath Oikawa is only just getting his wits back about him, and so Ushijima has to lift him carefully into his arms and step the both of them into the water, lowering himself down carefully so he doesn’t slip.

“You’re awful,” Oikawa murmurs, though he makes no move to reposition himself as he lies against Ushijima’s broad chest. “Fucking dog.”

Ushijima chuckles. His fingers are in Oikawa’s hair, washing out the product the setter had put in it that morning, his eyes turning to where the setter’s long fingers walk up his thigh every now and again.

“If you’re so possessive then why did you let Iwa-chan fuck me? I would’ve thought that you’d have gotten into a fistfight or something instead of collectively ruining my asshole.”

“As I said before – if you had let me finish, then maybe you would understand. What I was _trying_ to say is that after the reaction wore off, I found that I was strangely undeterred by him being with you.”

Oikawa pauses. He’s glad Ushijima can’t see how his brows furrow in confusion. He knocks his knees against Ushijima’s as he thinks.

“Why?”

He feels Ushijima shrug behind him.

It’s weird, bathing with the spiker like this. Sure, they’d showered together before (see: fucking in the shower primarily), but to just sit domestically like this… they’d never done it before. And yet, he finds that he really doesn’t mind it.

“I’m rather fond of him.”

Oikawa turns incredulously. Ushijima stares back, face as unreadable as ever.

“ _Fond?_ ” Oikawa repeats because he really cannot believe what he’s hearing. “ _You_ are fond of _Iwa-chan_? Ushiwaka-chan, April Fool’s day was months ago.”

“I am not fooling you,” Ushijima replies, and somehow Oikawa can tell he isn’t. “He is rather like a puppy.”

Appalled, Oikawa sits back. _Shit. He’s right._ Ushijima takes Oikawa’s silence as acceptance, and after the setter turns around again and settles back against the warm, reassuring heat of Ushijima’s chest, the subject is dropped.

For a while.

“I try so hard to hate you,” Oikawa murmurs a little later, his scalp still warm from Ushijima’s gentle ministrations. “It used to be easy, back when things were broken. Back when you used to break me, back when I didn’t understand any of it. I try so hard, but it’s become so difficult. I don’t _want_ to do anything other than hate you.”

Ushijima waits patiently for the ‘but’ he knows is coming.

“But I _can’t_.”

Ushijima’s strong thumbs press into the muscles of Oikawa’s shoulders, pushing and kneading the knots he can feel beneath the skin. The setter bends his head forwards in response, sighing, and Ushijima’s eyes drag leisurely over the spools of his spine.

“It is a question I meant to ask you years ago,” Ushijima says. “You do realize that now your relationship with Iwaizumi is mending, you are going to be faced with a decision, don’t you?”

Oikawa sits silently staring down at the water rippling around his fingers. Had this situation occurred even one or two years earlier, it would have been so _easy_. Had things remained the same, even, it would be easy. But as things would have it, Oikawa had grown, as had Ushijima and Iwaizumi. He’d been forced into the most uncomfortable of situations and he’d _adapted_ , and now Ushijima – despite his continuous and brutal injuring of both Oikawa’s body and of his heart – is now not as deplorable as he’d once been. He doesn’t _love_ him, at least not as much as he loves Iwa-chan, but there’s something that makes him hesitate. Something that makes him think. _You couldn’t leave me._ There’s truth in those words. Oikawa knows deep in his heart that Ushijima has become something much like what Iwaizumi had been. Not quite the same, of course – in fact, not even remotely similar. But to imagine a life without Ushijima is just as odd now as it would have been in high school, only this time he’s not willing to give up their transgressions, because he’s come to enjoy them.

He’d been so terrified of Ushijima leaving him to rot. Now he’s terrified of leaving Ushijima. Because, as much as Oikawa is loath to admit it, Ushijima has become a constant. And that isn’t something Oikawa can just forget.

“I know.” His voice is quiet. He knows exactly what that decision is going to be.

 

* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi is still, quite honestly, reeling.

He isn’t sure exactly what he’d been expecting to come from that visit to Oikawa’s dorm, but he can quite safely say that what _had_ happened was the absolute, superlatively _last_ thing he had ever expected to happen.

That isn’t to say he didn’t enjoy it. Because he most certainly did.

It had taken a couple of hours for things to fully catch up to him; he’d been sitting in a lecture when the reality had knocked him upside the head like a stack of bricks or a high-speed bullet train. He’d had to excuse himself just to get his head about him again.

On one hand, Iwaizumi is filled with fluttering excitement whenever he thinks about it. Oikawa still _loves_ him, and fuck, Iwaizumi still loves him too. He’s grown – they both have. He’d been helplessly in love with the boy Oikawa had been, and now he’s even more in love with the man Oikawa has become. Being with him like that… having sex with him… it makes his heart jump and his stomach lurch in the most pleasant of ways, and occasionally he catches a crooked smile or two bubble to his lips and he has to cover his mouth before someone asks what he’s smiling about. On the other hand, however, he’s horrified. He’d given in so easily – realistically he knows he should have kicked Ushijima out. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself too, as though he’d been caught in an unrelentingly strong current that had dragged him under the surface and wouldn’t let him back up again. There had been something abut Ushijima that had intoxicated him in the very same way Oikawa did – even now, as he lies on his bed staring at the ceiling just _thinking_ about it, he still can’t figure out what it was. All he knows for sure is that he shouldn’t have given in as easily as he had done – he’s supposed to be mad at Oikawa for cheating on him.

But Oikawa is Oikawa, and to Iwaizumi, that always makes things a little different.

Sighing, he sits up and goes to turn on the lights. He’d let his thoughts run away with him again and the sky had gotten dark without him noticing. He squints against the sudden glare of the light as he turns it on, rubbing his eyes dazedly.

His flatmate is out. He doesn’t know where she’s gone, but then again he never really does; he enjoys having the place to himself from time to time. He sits back down at his desk, intending to get some work done before going for a run later on.

The numbers, however, swim illegibly before his eyes. There’s no way he can concentrate like this – what had happened is still heavy on his mind and it’s far too distracting for him to be able to concentrate on something like statistics, of all things.

 _I want to be with him_ , he thinks helplessly as he taps his pen against the blank page of his notebook. The ache for Oikawa twinges deep in his chest at the thought of it. Ushijima, he thinks, is one of those people who are impossible to emotionally fulfill. It makes Iwaizumi a little nervous, because even though Oikawa makes his distaste of Ushijima Wakatoshi as obvious as he possible can, there’s a subtle kind of connection between them that Iwaizumi had been able to sense as soon as Ushijima had walked into the room. As fractured or as broken as it had been, it was still there, and Iwaizumi can’t shake it.

The thought of being like _that_ with Ushijima is just… too strange. Sure, having a threesome is one thing, but to spend time with Ushijima, to _bond_ with him, is something else entirely. He remembers Oikawa cuddled up in his arms, those fragrant auburn locks spilling across his clavicle, and he knows that he has to have Oikawa again no matter what. Iwaizumi Hajime doesn’t back down – especially not when Oikawa Tōru is involved.

But no matter how he looks at it, he’d still reacted. He’d reacted to Ushijima, to something in his voice to something in his touch. That _something_ had practically set him on fire; it had riled him up more than even Oikawa ever had, right until he was almost blind with lust. It had been then that Iwaizumi had first begun to understand what Oikawa had fund so intoxicating to begin with, and the more he reflects on it the more obvious and irresistible it becomes and – as horrified as Iwaizumi is to think abut it – he begins to realize that had he been in Oikawa’s position when they were back in high school, he might very well have done the same thing. That revelation rattled him to the point of nausea, but he couldn’t – and still can’t – avoid the truth of it.

“Shit.”

He doesn’t like thinking about Ushijima that way. He’d seen him naked, he’d seen the size of his dick – that alone is strange enough, but Iwaizumi seems to go even further, getting uncomfortably hot beneath the collar at the memory of Ushijima’s powerful glistening body moving as he fucks. He’d fucked Oikawa so unabashedly even though Iwaizumi was in the same room; he was unrelenting, like some kind of wild animal, or a thunderstorm.

It sets something alight deep in Iwaizumi’s groin.

He hates it. He hates it because he can’t help but imagine _himself_ in that situation – in the same place Oikawa had previously occupied. He hates it because it makes him hot, because it _arouses_ him in all the ways he really doesn’t want to be aroused. Not only has Iwaizumi always applied himself to a strictly alpha-male kind of mentality, but because it’s Ushijima Wakatoshi of all people who is having such a profound effect on him.

Iwaizumi remembers the way Oikawa had become so wanton beneath the other man’s hands, how he’d spread open like butter; Iwaizumi remembers very clearly how entranced he’d been at the sight of Oikawa’s ruined hole, the sigh of it raw and stretched and _dripping_ , all at the hands of somebody else. But it wasn’t just a stranger. It was _Ushijima._

With a shaky inhale Iwaizumi realizes that he’s begun to react to his thoughts, and that his pants have grown uncomfortably tight. Even though there’s nobody else in the room he blushes deeply, placing his forehead down on his desk and groaning. Fuck – just the _thought_ of it is enough to get him hard.

But that really isn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it is the fact that he wants to _try_ it. He wants to feel the very depths of what Oikawa feels when Ushijima has him in his grips – the thought seems so abhorrent and yet he can’t stop thinking about it. Back when they were dating, sex between him and Oikawa always played out very much the same: he would top and Oikawa would bottom, nothing more and nothing less. Iwaizumi had never even thought of trying anything new – that was always how he’d been, and how people had always expected him to be: reliable and unchanging. But he _wants_ change; he wants something new, unfamiliar, dangerous. And he’s found all those things in Ushijima Wakatoshi. It infuriates him, but as angry as he is it doesn’t change the fact that he wants to know how it feels to have Ushijima’s cock buried deep inside him, how it feels to feel so split open and helpless and _pleasured_. His curiosity is absolutely morbid, and it scares him, but the more he thinks about being forced down by those strong, dark hands and fucked by that powerful body, the harder he gets. His skin shivers and rises in gooseflesh over every inch of his body, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on edge, as alert and erect as the rest of him. He vaults to his feet, his cock by now straining against his fly, and the mere act of standing provides enough friction to elicit a deep, hoarse moan.

He swears under his breath as he heads to the bathroom – ideally a cold shower would calm him down enough to study. He tries not to think about it anymore, but the more he tries the more he’s unable to and he can’t _stop_ , he just can’t. The sensation is too strong, it makes him feel too many things – it’s effecting him too deeply. He steps into the shower, recoiling beneath the freezing water. He grits his teeth and bears it, but his mind only works faster, imaging the things those lips could say, and he suddenly becomes incredibly aware of the sensation of Ushijima yanking his hair and wrestling him onto his back.

Iwaizumi replays the drag of Ushijima’s erection against his own as he reaches down between his thighs, his hand curling around his cock. He recalls how hot and slick the other man’s dick had been, how _large_ it had felt in the palm of his hand. He remembers when he’d held them together, stroked them both in tandem, felt Ushijima’s body shudder at his touch.

His hand is shaking as he moves it, just as though it has a life of its own. A gasp falls from his lips and his body bends, hips thrusting into his own hand. For a brief moment he imagines that it’s Ushijima with his hand wrapped around his cock, thumb pressing against the slit. While it would have sickened him a few months ago, now it merely fills his head with haze. His eyes refuse to stay open and as the pleasure mounts at the base of his spine his fantasies grow brighter, louder, and he’s able to forget about the reality from time to time to instead focus on the image of his own spine slick with sweat. His mind is screaming at him, though this time any protests are muffled.

His body tenses as he cums, hand tightening at the base of his cock; his entire form shudders violently and he almost slips. Reaching out he catches himself just in time, though his hands are shaking and as the haze and as the haze in his mind slowly begins to clear his horror returns – what the fuck had he just done? Had he just _jerked off_ to the idea of _Ushijima Wakatoshi_ fucking him?

Iwaizumi shakily scrubs himself down and gets out of the shower, seeking purchase on the first seat he sees.

And then he laughs.

He bursts out laughing and doesn’t stop until there are tears standing in his eyes; it’s the kind of gut-wrenching laughter that steals his breath and makes his sides ache. It’s just all so _ridiculous_ – here he is, entertaining not only the idea of pursuing a relationship with not only Oikawa Tōru but with Ushijima Wakatoshi, and even _worse_ , entertaining the idea of having sex with him. It’s so ridiculous that he can’t help but laugh and laugh and _laugh_.

“Hell,” he wheezes, wiping tears from the very corners of his eyes. “Looks like I’m fucked.”


	14. Chapter 14

_“A man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – André Gide_

* * *

 

“Fuck!”

Iwaizumi’s roommate shrieks, dropping her cold cup of coffee into the sink. She glares in the direction of his bedroom door before storming over to it, throwing it open and putting her hands on her hips, her face pinched in annoyance.

“Iwaizumi-kun!” she barks at Iwaizumi, who sits with his arms sprawled over his desk and his head hidden between them, broad back bent tiredly. “Stop making so much noise!” She watches him for a little bit, moving her arms from her hips to fold them over her chest, sighing. She tilts her head, taking a few steps into the room and looking around. “Stressed, huh?”

Iwaizumi grunts.

It’s the middle of his exam week – the last exams of the semester – and Iwaizumi is suffering. He’d never considered that studying for medicine could be as physically and mentally taxing as high-league high school volleyball; even so, his muscles ache from sitting bent over his desk for hours and hours and his brain honestly feels like it’s about to melt out of his ears. He hates this feeling but he knows it’s necessary.

He really hasn’t gotten the hang of handling his stress, though, if the dent in the wall above his desk is any indication. His roommate sighs again, clicking her tongue a little. “You’re paying for that, by the way!” She pats him consolingly on the shoulder and he can hear her muttering to herself as she leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

Iwaizumi groans, raising himself up onto his elbows to rub at his eyes. It’s late in the evening – already dark – and he vaguely remembers having slept very little the night before. He’d had an exam that morning and has _another_ one tomorrow morning; he’d been so busy studying for his other exams that he hadn’t had time to study for this one. Even now, hours after he’d started, there’s still an enormous amount of content he has to cover and beat into his brain. He isn’t sure how much longer he can manage.

He needs to move. He’s been sat sedentary for hours upon hours upon hours and even just standing is enough to make his muscles shriek. He quickly changed into his running gear (namely just an old shirt and his old Aobajōsai volleyball shorts), going to the door of their flat and pulling on his shoes. He calls out to his flatmate to let her know he’s going out.

“Good!” she calls back from where she’s sat in front of the television with her hand buried wrist-deep in a bowl of popcorn. “Get some blood through those veins, Iwaizumi-kun, and no more throwing things and damaging property, you hear me?”

He laughs, letting himself out.

It’s cold outside – far too cold for his liking. Iwaizumi has always been a summer person, preferring sweltering heat over the freezing Tokyo winters. He misses the summers he used to have in Miyagi; he misses the shrieking of the cicadas and the humid veil of the mountains. But, he thinks as he jogs on the spot a little to warm himself up, Tokyo is nice in its own way. The entire place is lit up like a Christmas tree around this time of year and the streets are strung with magnificent decorations that he’d never seen in Sendai. He’d still prefer to admire them from inside, though.

Iwaizumi rubs his hands together, blowing on his fingers as he heads towards the stairwell to descend the short four floors to the street below. He’s already mapping a route in his head: long enough to work off some steam, not long enough to sacrifice his studies _or_ freeze his dick off. He stretches as he walks out beneath one of the tall lamps lighting the avenue, pausing for only a few moments before he sets off at a brisk pace.

His breath clouds before him as he runs, wafting back over his shoulder like the smoke of a cigarette. He focuses on the steady rising and falling of his feet along the pavement, the ebb and flow of the streetlamps’ light as it washes over him. He feels as though he could run this route with his eyes closed; even though it’s mostly on campus, he feels like he needs a break from school and decides to venture off a little bit into the back-streets.

The back streets of Tokyo are different from the bustling intersections or the brightly lit squares. They have their own sort of charm, Iwaizumi thinks, though in their entirety they aren’t pleasant. He remembers when he and Oikawa used to take back-street shortcuts as kids in Sendai, and how those little alleys had been narrowed with potted plants, low windows with bamboo screens and bursting geraniums; they’d been bright and gleaming, clean from the invisible hands of the old women and war widows that lived in their little houses where nobody would notice them, where nobody would bother them. Tokyo, however, is different – it’s dilapidated where Sendai was charming, but even the sludge and grime of the gutters has an odd sort of allure to it. Iwaizumi likes Tokyo’s back streets because they press close and grey and infinite and he can imagine that he’s worlds away in any city in the world. He’s surrounded by rusting pipes and cracked, naked concrete, dirty puddles of thawed ice brown and opaque beneath his shoes. In Sendai he’d remembered those alleys, mapped them out in his mind until he knew them almost as well as he knew himself – here, in Tokyo, he never seems to visit the same place twice.

Iwaizumi, quite abruptly, comes to a stop. He’s hit something hard and at first he believes it to be a wall he hadn’t seen, or maybe the pole of a streetlamp – after all, he’d gotten so lost in his thoughts he’d began to lose track of reality. It’s easy to do something like that in alleys like these.

He quickly realizes it to be a body rather than a wall: broad and tall and heavily muscled. An inkling of fear settles in his stomach; people in places like this aren’t usually the type of people you’d want to associate yourself with. Iwaizumi can hold his own in a fight, sure, but the people who inhabit Tokyo’s darkest corners never fight fair. As he looks up, squinting against the light of the streetlamp, his fists ball at his sides.

“Iwaizumi.”

Iwaizumi’s breath leaves him in a relieved sigh, his muscles relaxing and his fists uncurling. It’s Ushijima – God knows what he’s doing out here at this time of night, but Iwaizumi is really too relieved that he isn’t some kind of thug to care. “The hell are you doing out here?” he asks, breath ragged as he recovers from his exertion. Ushijima, he notices, has barely raised a pant.

“I was headed to the gym,” Ushijima replies and gestures vaguely down the street Iwaizumi had just come from. “I have nothing to do, so I decided to practice my serves.”

Iwaizumi nods, rubbing a hand over his mouth, then over the back of his neck. Ushijima watches him curiously, lips parted as though to speak.

“You seem on edge.” Ushijima’s voice is low and smooth and he folds his arms, leaning his weight onto his back foot, and Iwaizumi realizes that Ushijima isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

“Exams,” Iwaizumi says, but Ushijima still doesn’t move. He just stands there peering at him curiously, like a child would inspect a puzzle; Iwaizumi feels a little nervous beneath the scrutiny of those golden eyes. They’ve always unnerved him, but in the half-light they look almost black. A beat of silence passes between them.

“Are you stressed?”

“Yeah. I… threw a book at the wall. Dented it.”

Ushijima raises an eyebrow at that.

Iwaizumi is glad when Ushijima straightens a little, putting some space between them. When had they gotten so close? The alley, naturally, is narrow, and since both of them aren’t exactly, _thin_ , it’s wont to be a tight fit.

“Come with me.”

Iwaizumi blinks, having been too concentrated on the proximity of their bodies to listen.

“To the gym. Come with me. If you are stressed, then perhaps some spikes might help you.”

For a few moments Iwaizumi is completely silent; he can only stare, wide-eyed in shock, up at Ushijima. _Ushijima Wakatoshi_ had just asked him, Iwaizumi Hajime, to do volleyball drills with him. He blinks again, rapidly this time, half believing that he’s still asleep at his desk and caught up in some bizarre kind of dream.

“…okay. Sure. Yeah. That’d be great.”

They don’t walk single-file back down the alley. Perhaps they should have – the street is just wide enough to allow them to walk abreast, though hardly at a comfortable distance. Iwaizumi’s shoulder is jostled tight against the curve of Ushijima’s arm, and despite the closeness, neither of them says a word. It would be more than easy for Iwaizumi to drop into step behind Ushijima, of course. But he doesn’t.

Once they exit back out onto the main street they pick up at a jog, still silent, merely concentrating on each other’s company. Ushijima isn’t like Oikawa – Oikawa loves to talk as he runs and never seems to be out of breath. Ushijima, however, allows himself to breathe, and the washing of his breath reminds Iwaizumi curiously of the ocean; he’s sure that if he closes his eyes he could imagine the swelling of the sea alongside him. They arrive at the gym not ten minutes later; it’s a public gym, not yet closed, but it’s empty. There are remnants from a children’s volleyball game leftover, the net still strung up. Ushijima is the one who enters first, and Iwaizumi thinks he looks rather strange dressed in clothes other than his uniform on a volleyball court. It’s also strange to see him standing all on his own, hands on his hips, face cast towards the ceiling.

“You can serve,” Ushijima says suddenly, breaking Iwaizumi from his hazy thoughts. He pushes a bin of volleyballs over to Iwaizumi, who’s come to stand centre before the net. “I will receive them.” As he makes to duck under the net, Ushijima glances at him and fixes him with a stony gaze. “Please do not hold back.”

Something inside Iwaizumi bristles. He takes a ball out of the bin, stepping back a few paces in order to get a wide stance. Ushijima is _there_ , on the other side of the net, those hawk-like eyes focused on _him_. Only him.

Taking a deep breath, Iwaizumi tosses the ball into the air, swinging back his arm to serve it over the net. It isn’t a particularly hard or forceful serve, and Ushijima receives it easily enough, his strong forearms sending the ball spinning into the air back over to Iwaizumi, who catches it once more. It’s a dance, and they both know it. They could be circling each other like animals for all it matters; it’s a game to gauge each other’s strengths, for one to get a feel of the other without having to touch him. Iwaizumi’s next serve is stronger. Ushijima receives it the same as before, and again Iwaizumi catches the ball.

The next serve is hard. It’s the first serve into which Iwaizumi translates his stress, but Ushijima still manages to receive it and send the ball spinning back over the net. Iwaizumi lets out a breath and Ushijima continues to watch him steadily, their eyes never leaving, their gaze never breaking. The gym is silent except for their breathing, and it feels strangely intimate. Iwaizumi bites back a shudder.

Slowly Iwaizumi begins to grow used to Ushijima’s body, the way he moves, the direction his eyes follow as they chase the path of the ball. He can see numbers spinning in Ushijima’s golden irises, his face tight in calculation; Iwaizumi can see him as he maps out lines and numbers and angles just as he himself had mapped out those alleys in Sendai with the bamboo screens and geraniums. Iwaizumi’s serves become harder, and soon enough his silence gives way to frustrated grunts as he slams the ball over the net.

He wasn’t Aobajōsai’s ace for nothing.

Raw strength had always been their point of intersection; both Iwaizumi and Ushijima possess skill, certainly, but their golden streaks have always been their power. Both of them have strong, dense bodies made for being vessels of immense strength. They execute it differently, and it would be wrong to say that they play in similar ways, but there’s no denying it. Both of them are incredibly strong.

But Iwaizumi can’t help but wonder – why him? Isn’t it Oikawa that Ushijima has always been so desperate to play with? As far as Iwaizumi had been concerned, Ushijima had never had any interest in him whatsoever. And yet here they are, passing a ball back and forth over a volleyball net as though they hadn’t been ready to rip each other’s throats out at one point.

Iwaizumi stands at the back of the court, tossing the ball from hand to hand. Ushijima lowers his stance in response, ready to dive for the ball, preparing himself for the increase in force he knows is coming. Iwaizumi doesn’t serve often, and he does jump-serves even less – that had always been Oikawa’s domain. But here, with just the two of them, Iwaizumi couldn’t think of anything better to crown his coup-de-grâce. It may have just been a flicker of the light, but for a moment Iwaizumi’s heart stops in his chest; Ushijima’s eyes are wide, his pupils constricted, eyes focused on the ball. He almost looks… hungry. _Ready_.

He wants Iwaizumi to serve as hard as he can.

Iwaizumi’s heart thunders in his ears as he tosses the ball up, tipping his fingers to get the right angle. He runs those few paces, then vaults himself up on his powerful legs, letting his right arm swing down to slam against the ball, sending it jetting hard and fast over the net. A frustrated cry wrestles its way from between Iwaizumi’s teeth as he hits the ball, and in it is contained all his stress and his exhaustion and _everything_ , even the things he can’t put names to. It’s all contained in that sound, in that serve, and as Iwaizumi lands back on the court he sees the ball hurtle towards Ushijima.

It’s mesmerizing; Ushijima’s entire body opens up to receive it, the muscles in his thighs tightening and the veins in the very insides of his elbows glistening blue against the membrane. Sweat glistens beneath the harsh lights of the gym and the ball spins up, passing each bulb like the moon eclipsing the sun.

Ushijima can’t pass the ball back to Iwaizumi this time. The serve was too fast, too violent, and while Ushijima is a solid receiver he’s no libero; Iwaizumi’s serve hits the inside of his left arm and ricochets off into the corner of the gym, rolling to a stop against the wall. They both stand there, breathing hard, eyes riveted on the ball.

The silence is tense. It’s drawn tight as a string; they’re both familiar with tension like this, but this time the nature of it is a little different. Their adrenaline appears to be connected, just as though their veins have linked in some massive network. Iwaizumi can feel the way Ushijima’s skin is throbbing and his heart his pounding. He’s never seemed more human.

“Showers,” is all Ushijima says, nodding curtly in the direction of the bathrooms. Despite the chill of the late November air, Iwaizumi finds himself very warm, and he nods gratefully, following the other man towards the door. Ushijima’s shirt sticks to the muscles of his back and Iwaizumi can’t help but watch; he’s snapped from his half-trance as the material is wrenched up over Ushijima’s back, and suddenly Iwaizumi realizes that they’re in the locker rooms and that Ushijima is undressing. The memory of Ushijima’s dick springs to mind and Iwaizumi turns away, blushing furiously. He’s pissed off, mostly at himself for reacting as he is. He curses himself as he pulls off his own shirt and concentrates on completely stripping down, trying to push Ushijima’s close presence from his mind.

_Things are different now._

Iwaizumi hears the squeaking of the taps and the clatter of hot water pipes behind the walls as Ushijima heads into the showers. It’s _freezing_ , despite the sweat they’d worked up, and so Iwaizumi strips off and almost sprints towards the hot water, feet blistering against the cold tiles. Ushijima is there already, one hand still curled around the hot water tap, water cascading down between the swell of his shoulders, down the crevice of his back between the muscles, over the broadness of his shoulders and his arms.

He’s almost shy about it. Back in high school – and even before that; hell, even at his own gym – he’d never been in the least bashful about getting stark naked in front of others. He’s proud of his body, as he believes he should be; he’s taken care of himself and that care has resulted in a healthy, muscular, compact body that he’d heard called attractive (he still didn’t really believe it, nor did he necessarily care), and has no issue with baring it. Iwaizumi has never been self-conscious, and yet here, standing beside Ushijima who is _completely_ unashamed of his own nakedness, he feels shy.

Maybe it’s because of what had happened between them. Maybe it’s because Iwaizumi has never seen him casually naked before. Maybe it’s because the light is suddenly very clear and allows him to see far more than the dim light from _that_ night had – if he was to shift his eyes just a little he’d be able to see each curve and swell of muscle, each tendon, each stretch of sinew swimming beneath Ushijima’s skin. Iwaizumi had always been able to appreciate marvelous physique, going so far as to comment on it extensively, but Ushijima… he can’t look at him objectively. Not like that.

It’s far, _far_ too subjective for Iwaizumi to feel comfortable, but at the same time he’s filled with the sudden and almost unbearable impulse to touch him. He clasps his hands around him, passing it off as a shiver from the cold.

He realizes too late that he’d been staring, eyes floating down the plane of Ushijima’s broad chest to linger somewhere around his solar plexus. And Ushijima had caught him.

“Are you all right?” Ushijima’s ask, the deep richness of his voice ricocheting around the empty bathroom, shocking Iwaizumi into wakefulness. Iwaizumi flushes fiercely in embarrassment, setting about scrubbing himself down and mumbling his inaudibly excuses. Ushijima merely watches him, perhaps a little amused, head tilted owlishly to the side. Iwaizumi peeks at him; his hair is slicked back against his scalp, framing and revealing his entire face in an unfamiliar and an infuriatingly attractive way. The water dripping from his lips doesn’t help either.

Iwaizumi feels a hand slide up the back of his neck. He freezes, glancing to Ushijima as his skin rises and a shiver ripples through his gut. Ushijima is still watching him, his expression a little more open than it had been before. They’re still, silent, accompanied only by the incessant rush of the showerheads above them.

“I’m fine,” Iwaizumi says and shrugs off Ushijima’s hand. Calmness had descended over him as soon as that broad palm had laid against the nape of his neck and it unnerved him – how could Ushijima affect him like that? How could a _god damned_ touch affect him like that? He’s confused, half cold and half hot, incredibly aware of Ushijima’s body beside his, incredibly aware of himself and the proximity between them.

He wishes Oikawa was there to make the tension easier to bear.

There’s a strange noise to Iwaizumi’s right – at first he suspects it to be something from the drain, but he soon realizes it’s a chuckle, low and smooth.

“You are nervous,” Ushijima observes with a little, amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “You should be used to these kind of things.”

“I am,” Iwaizumi snaps defensively, still a little embarrassed from being… well, embarrassed. He turns away, lips twisted into an impertinent pout, and Ushijima chuckles again, though this time a little louder. “If you’re gonna laugh at me, I’ll leave and take your clothes with me.”

It’s an idle threat, but Ushijima stops laughing.

“Turn around.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes snap to Ushijima and he reluctantly turns, fists balled by his side as he tries not to let the scrutiny of Ushijima’s eyes affect him too deeply. He’d had enough emotional revelations in the past 72 hours and the last thing he needs is another one.

Ushijima looks at him – he regards him as one would regard a photograph, and he looks ponderous as he does so, like he’s never seen Iwaizumi before in his life. _This_ part of him, Iwaizumi realizes then, is something Ushijima has indeed never seen before. Iwaizumi’s wrist rises, though not by his own doing – it’s Ushijima who’s holding the spiker’s wrist in his hand, fingers so large they close completely around it; Iwaizumi shudders and instantly regrets letting his eyes wander away from the safety of Ushijima’s face.

The hand is pressed flat against the slight swell of Ushijima’s pectoral. It’s right over his heart, the skin warm and surprisingly soft beneath Iwaizumi’s fingers, the muscle distinct and firm. Ushijima holds the hand there for a moment before letting go. Iwaizumi, through what he believes to be an unfaltering strength of character, keeps it there. He can’t breathe; his breath refuses to cooperate, his lungs shutting off and his throat tightening until he feels like he’ll suffocate. Ushijima’s skin isn’t quite as dark as his own, but the golden colour of it is mesmerizing even under the harsh fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Water cascades down over where their skin meets, running between Iwaizumi’s fingers, quite suddenly cold against the growing warmth of his touch.

He’s curious. That first touch is so forgiving, so gentle – unexpectedly so, even. Iwaizumi had always seen Ushijima as a block of stone, cold and hard and unfeeling. He’d always seen him as a _thing_ , not a human, so to feel the soft heat of his skin and the gentle beating of his heart beneath his hand is very foreign and very unexpected. Iwaizumi’s other hand relaxes from its fist and raises slightly – he’s hesitating – until his fingers brush against Ushijima’s side. His eyes still clasp to Ushijima’s gaze, and in that silence he seeks permission to touch, to explore, to _discover_. Iwaizumi always was an adventurer.

Ushijima doesn’t move and he doesn’t speak but somehow that permission is given and Iwaizumi’s palm curls around Ushijima’s thick waist, travelling from his spine around to his abdomen, rough fingers exploring the ridges of his abs and the hard line of muscle stretched over his ribs. Ushijima’s body is firm and marvelously sculpted – Iwaizumi is in awe, eyes wide as he drinks in the sight of it. It’s never been any secret that Ushijima is attractive, certainly, but his personality had always somewhat balanced it out. But up close like this Iwaizumi sees that there’s a plethora of secrets he hadn’t seen before, and even Ushijima’s infuriating bluntness couldn’t dampen the effect Iwaizumi is quickly being gripped by. His hands meet over Ushijima’s solar plexus, then travel together up over his chest, coming to a stop at his shoulders before Iwaizumi allows his fingers to ghost down over Ushijima’s arms.

When Iwaizumi’s hands reach Ushijima’s wrists he looks up again at those hawklike eyes; his gut lurches at the sight of them. Ushijima’s eyes are hooded only slightly, but his pupils are blown wider than they were before. It’s the inly indicator Iwaizumi has – the rest of his face is entirely closed off, and had Iwaizumi not known any better, he would have thought Ushijima was entirely unmoved.

Luckily for him, he does know better.

They’d moved close – of course it hadn’t been on purpose, but a mere pull of gravity. Iwaizumi has encountered it before, but only with Oikawa, so it comes as a little bit of a shock; but Ushijima’s eyes hold him and he doesn’t move away.

If Ushijima had been wearing a shirt, Iwaizumi would have undoubtedly fisted his hands in the front of it and shoved him up against the nearest wall. Ushijima is not, however, wearing a shirt (for which Iwaizumi is just a _little bit_ glad), and so Iwaizumi settles for gripping his upper arms and pushing the bulk of Ushijima’s body up against the tiles of the shower. He’s rewarded by a full-body shiver tearing through Ushijima’s body – whether caused by the cold or something else Iwaizumi isn’t sure, not that he really cares – which causes his skin to rise and nipples to harden. Iwaizumi isn’t sure whether or not Ushijima is aroused by the sudden shove – he decides to take it in his stride, though, and decides that he is.

Ushijima’s hands are firm around Iwaizumi’s elbows and he pulls him closer, none too gently, and kisses him again. It’s not gentle like Iwaizumi’s previous touches were, but it’s hotter, turning the simmer deep in Iwaizumi’s groin into the startings of a fire. He’s already starting to react; he’s hardening against Ushijima’s thigh.

“Fuck you,” he snarls – more upon instinct than anything – as Ushijima catches his lower lip between his teeth, tugging on it.

“Not here,” Ushijima replies in a breath without so much as missing a beat; his presence vanishes all too suddenly, and Iwaizumi finds himself pinned to the wall instead, the tiles warm from where Ushijima’s body had been but moments before.

“What are you –,” Iwaizumi begins, but his voice is broken off as he feels Ushijima’s lips pressing kisses up his thigh, urgent and open-mouthed. His arousal hits him like a punch in the teeth and he’s almost rock-hard by the time Ushijima reaches the apex of his legs; he looks down through bleary eyes to see the face he’d wanted so much to crush into the dirt _looking up_ at him, the thickness of Iwaizumi’s cock just barely kissing his cheek.

Hazily, Iwaizumi wonders if Ushijima is as good at giving head as Oikawa is. He doubts it, but he knows Ushijima trained Oikawa’s throat and reason states that Ushijima must have learned from _somewhere_. Iwaizumi’s hand is shaking as he reaches down to thread it through Ushijima’s wet hair. “Is this okay?” he asks, voice as shaky as his fingers. Ushijima raises an eyebrow in response, sitting back on his haunches a little and placing his hand at the base of Iwaizumi’s cock.

“Is it?”

Iwaizumi bites his lip, then looks away, leaning his head against the shower tiles.

Ushijima’s lips are different from Oikawa’s. They’re not as thick, nor as soft, and hardly as sweet. But Iwaizumi isn’t looking for sweetness or succulence, and the occasional scrape of Ushijima’s teeth has him hissing and bucking his hips, fingers tightening to yank on Ushijima’s hair. His tongue feels different, too; it’s a little larger, but just as soft and hot as Oikawa’s.

 _Stop comparing him to Oikawa,_ something tells him.

So he does. He doesn’t compare the feeling of Ushijima to Oikawa because he knows that’s stupid – they’re different, of course they wouldn’t feel the same. He wouldn’t want them to feel the same.

“Shit,” he gasps, breath hitching and hips pressing towards Ushijima, whose hands have curled around Iwaizumi’s thighs. He can’t take him all the way down his throat, but what his mouth can’t reach he supplies with a large, calloused hand, knuckles reaching up beneath Iwaizumi’s balls to press against his perineum. Iwaizumi, his face flushed scarlet with arousal and the slightest ebb of embarrassment, inches his hips forwards. His mind is hazy. _Fuck me._

Those golden eyes flick up to look at him through dark lashes, light gleaming off the wet ridges of Ushijima’s cheekbones. Iwaizumi’s free hand joins the other in Ushijima’s hair, helping to guide his head up and down the length of his cock. He’s amazed he’s lasted this long.

“I’m close,” he whispers hoarsely, and then he pauses for a moment before continuing, his blush deepening. “Face.”

Ushijima understands instantly; he keeps sucking, working his tongue around the glans and the shaft of Iwaizumi’s cock, just for a little longer. When he feels Iwaizumi’s balls tighten a little, he pulls off, occupying himself with just the head. He pays attention to each inch of skin, lathing his tongue over Iwaizumi’s slit and drinking down the precum. Iwaizumi’s hips stutter under his hands and it’s only then that Ushijima wraps his fist around Iwaizumi’s cock, stroking him fast and hard until he’s shivering and trying to choke back his cries.

Iwaizumi cums with a hoarse cry, his attempt to muffle it resulting in a split lip from where hit teeth bit down too hard. Ushijima’s lips are a little parted as Iwaizumi’s cum streaks over his face, warm and bitter as it drips down over his tongue and the ridge of his nose. His hand slows, jerking gently, making sure to squeeze every drop of cum out of Iwaizumi. His own body is pounding, cock standing hard between his legs. He waits patiently for Iwaizumi to calm down and descend from his high, standing up and moving close to pin Iwaizumi between his body and the wall.

The spiker’s head lolls against the tiles and he has to blink a few times to reorient himself; Ushijima kisses him while he’s still dazed, his lips tasting like fresh water and salty cum. He moans into the kiss, arms draping around Ushijima’s shoulders and his tongue darting out every now and again to lick his own cum off Ushijima’s face.

“I want you to fuck me,” Iwaizumi admits, his voice a half-moan; he can feel Ushijima’s cock gyrating against his hip and it’s enough to make him hard again. Instead of replying, Ushijima kisses down his neck, letting his teeth graze behind his ear and over his jugular. Only after lavishing Iwaizumi’s throat with attention does he straighten again, a large hand closing around both of their cocks and beginning to slowly stroke in tandem.

“Not here,” Ushijima repeats. Their faces are close, foreheads resting against each other; they’re pressed in an inextricable fold against the shower wall, Iwaizumi’s leg curled around Ushijima’s waist, hips flexing into the hand between them.

Iwaizumi isn’t embarrassed anymore. He felt no shame asking Ushijima to fuck him, and while at the moment he’s pissed off that he won’t do it, he knows it’s for the best. If he was to lose his anal virginity in a dingy gym bathroom Oikawa would never let him hear the end of it. He isn’t sure he could live with that.

“Fine,” he bites out and the thought is quickly abandoned in lieu of the magic Ushijima’s hand is working between them; it’s not long before they’re both cumming, gasping into each other’s skin and lips meeting in heated, intimate kisses.

They stand there, just catching their breath, beneath the warm water. Iwaizumi gingerly cleans his cum from Ushijima’s face, kissing it at intervals; it’s rare for him to be around someone broader than him (taller, of course, is a different matter), and he doesn’t object when Ushijima gathers him in his arms, the ridge of his chin pressed to Iwaizumi’s muscular shoulder. They stand there in silence – neither of them are sure for how long.

It’s Ushijima’s phone that disturbs them. Shutting off the showers they get out, grabbing towels from the cabinet and loitering around the locker rooms until they’re dry enough to get dressed and head home. They must have been in there longer than they’d thought – it was Oikawa who’d called, demanding to know where Ushijima was with his milk bread. Ushijima told him blatantly where he had been and exactly what he had been doing. There was a shocked silence from the other end of the line before Iwaizumi heard Oikawa’s squawk of “that’s not fair! I wasn’t there for your first blowjob!”

“I’ll walk you back,” Iwaizumi says as they leave the gym, hair still wet and bodies still tingling. Ushijima tells him he doesn’t have to, but Iwaizumi is having none of it.

For the most part they walk in silence; neither of them are big talkers, and the silence between them is comfortable. They focus on their footsteps, the way their shadows join at the shoulder – there’s an occasional sigh of chilly wind and they gravitate towards each other for warmth. In a way, Iwaizumi is still floored – he’d never thought he’d partake in something like that with Ushijima Wakatoshi, and moreover without Oikawa there to act as the adherent between them. On the other hand, though, it filled him with an obscure kind of hope. He can feel things changing with each step against the pavement, with each brush of Ushijima’s elbow against his own. Things aren’t how they used to be, and for Iwaizumi, the intrepid explorer since childhood, something like that is exciting.

He glances at Ushijima from the corner of his eye and runs his tongue over the wound on his lip. _Yeah. It’s cool._

If you had asked Iwaizumi Hajime a year ago if he hated Ushijima Wakatoshi, the answer would have been a firm and resounding ‘yes’. If you asked him now, he’d perhaps say ‘maybe’, or even ‘no’. He tries to trick himself in to thinking that there’s still a little bit of that old hate left over even though in his hear he knows it isn’t true. The past – back before all of this, beck when he and Oikawa were best friends united against a common enemy – is something he knows he should let go. But letting go of the past is never an easy thing.

They arrive at Ushijima’s campus and stop, turning to face one another. A few more beats of silence pass between them.

“What are you thinking?”

Iwaizumi shrugs. “I don’t think I hate you anymore.” As he says it his chest lurches.

Ushijima’s expression cracks open and he opens his mouth to reply, but just before he speaks he’s cut off by a loud voice rocketing across the courtyard.

“ _There_ you are!” Oikawa jogs over to them, face flushed and hair rumpled. He’s wearing a sweater _far_ too large for him ( _Ushijima’s,_ Iwaizumi thinks and struggles not to roll his eyes, _some things never change_ ) and looks very displeased to see them. “Just so you know, while you two were playing happy families in the shower my stomach was withering. Ushiwaka-chan, did you get my milk bread?”

Ushijima answers flatly and immediately. “I forgot.”

Iwaizumi bursts out laughing and Oikawa glares at him in mock injury. “Iwa-chan, stop laughing! You traitor!”

A window in one of the dorms nearby opens, a student leaning out and yelling at them to quiet down before he calls campus security. Oikawa folds his arms, pouting, but both Iwaizumi and Ushijima can see that he isn’t truly upset. They stand in the quiet for a few seconds.

“Hey,” Iwaizumi explodes suddenly. “You guys wanna date?” As soon as the words leave his mouth he’s absolutely mortified, and he’s thankful for the darkness that (somewhat) hides his glowing red face.

Oikawa blinks at him. “Iwa-chan, we already tried dating. Ushiwaka is too stupid for me.” Ushijima frowns at him.

“That’s… not what I meant.” Iwaizumi rubs a hand through his hair, trying his best to arrange the jumbled words in his head. “I meant dating. With me.”

Oikawa’s expression lifts in realization and he looks so shocked Iwaizumi struggles not to laugh. “I… date? Iwa-chan, you’d be okay with that?”

He shrugs his shoulders and spreads his hands. “Look – it can’t hurt, right? If it doesn’t work out we can stop. It’s not like we’re gonna die or anything. Besides,” he casts a glance to Ushijima. “I’m pretty sure that if I can bear to let Ushijima suck my dick then I can date him as well. It’s no big deal.”

Oikawa kisses him, then; it’s a big, public kiss right on his mouth, Oikawa’s slim hands squishing his cheeks. “Iwa-chan, I love you,” the setter tells him. “I love you so much.”

Iwaizumi smiles crookedly; he knows Oikawa would be happy with them all just being on good terms. Iwaizumi isn’t doing this for Oikawa – he’s doing it for all of them, because as he’d walked with Ushijima he’d realized that he _liked_ being around the both of them with their petty fights and handsome faces. It’s something he believes he can not only get used to, but learn to fully enjoy. “I love you too, jackass.”

Ushijima stands silently to the side, head bowed a little bit. “If you’re okay with it, I mean,” Iwaizumi adds on. Ushijima looks up at him and his eyes are bright as stars; he nods, and though his face is as unreadable as ever, the unmistakable glitter in his eyes tells Iwaizumi everything he needs to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lbr i don't know if there's anything better in this whole damn world than iwa-chan cumming all over ushijima's face


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i was gonna write ushi getting some butt action but when i opened the doc for the first time in a million years it turned out the sex scene was already written and my dudes i am Too Tired to go back and rewrite it im so sorry
> 
> also sorry this update is so late as i said im real tired and like. tbh. im still lying in bed.
> 
> PS i know it said there were 16 chaps before but since i am (say it with me now) Too Tired and can't think of an epilogue thanks to my shitty vague plan i just..... yeah.

_“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust_

 

* * *

 

The cicadas shriek in the hot, heavy summer air, the leaves drooping from the trees but still remaining thick and green. It had rained recently, making the earth steam – it’s the deepest part of the summer.

Oikawa, Iwaizumi, and Ushijima had decided to come back to Miyagi for the summer break. They’re all close to finishing their degrees by now, Oikawa anxious about being scouted into the national team. Ushijima, naturally, isn’t in the least worried about their abilities – he knows how strong they are, and their abilities have only improved over the years. Iwaizumi had quit volleyball, choosing instead to focus on his studies, so he didn’t have the same stress – his own anxiety weighed down on the size of his workload, but he found that with the support of both Oikawa and Ushijima, he was able to manage it a lot better than he’d been able to before. It was Iwaizumi’s job, in turn, to support them in their rigorous training. Trying to match and adjust to each other’s schedules was perhaps the most difficult part.

Ushijima Wakatoshi had become an unanticipated but not entirely unwelcome constant in Iwaizumi’s life. Despite the fact that he’d promised himself to never concern himself with Ushijima again, Iwaizumi now finds himself waking up beside him more mornings than not.

The thought might have been abhorrent to him in high school, but now he’s finding out that it isn’t really that bad.

Ushijima, he’s discovered, is actually a pretty decent guy. He’d discovered the violence and desperation very quickly once he began to concern himself with the two of them again, but most of Oikawa’s rage and desire to be hurt had stemmed from his rotted relationship with Iwaizumi. When that had been almost completely fixed, that rage dissipated, replaced by a kinder but no less forceful kind of passion. To Oikawa, fucking Ushijima was still something forbidden, even if Iwaizumi was there alongside him.

As the months dragged on Iwaizumi was struck with the revelation that he had touched on perfection; had he gotten back with Oikawa monogamously, he would have poisoned himself. The memories of Oikawa being drawn to another would always stay with him and _poison_ him with the anxiety that he’d do the same again, that Iwaizumi wouldn’t be good enough for him, that he wouldn’t be giving Oikawa what he needed. Oikawa already admitted that he and Ushijima didn’t work monogamously either. What Oikawa had done had closed off a number of options to him, but even though some things were now impossible, he’d carved an entirely new path for himself. After all – Iwaizumi’s mother always liked to say that a door never closed without opening a window.

And Iwaizumi didn’t mind where they were.

“It’s too _hot,_ ” Oikawa complains, sitting in front of the small electric fan set up on the tatami floor of Ushijima’s living room.

“It’s hotter in Tokyo,” Ushijima suggested (unhelpfully), his voice wafting up from where he was searching for his toolbox.

Oikawa groans in frustration, getting to his feet and searching for his wallet. “I’m going shopping. I’m getting some ice and some beer, because I think we all need it.” Despite his clipped, irritated tone, he goes over to where Ushijima is rifling through one of the old oak chests and crouches down beside him, resting his chin on Ushijima’s shoulder and pouting. “Don’t overheat and die.”

Ushijima looks at him, their noses bumping. Oikawa had spent the entire morning complaining about the heat and yet he has no complaints about being so close.

“I won’t.”

Oikawa presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and then jumps to his feet. “I’ll be back later!”

Ushijima listens to Oikawa’s high humming as he leaves, the sound terminated by the closing of the front door.

The only sound in the house is the constant humming of the cicadas and the rushing of the shower upstairs; the hot water pipes groan under the floors, almost musical. Ushijima finally locates his toolbox and, taking it and closing the chest, heads into the kitchen.

The tap in the kitchen sink was dripping, and had been dripping for the last six hours despite being tightly turned off. When Ushijima had opened the cabinet beneath the sink that morning he’d found a pool of water from a ruptured pipe; since it’s summer, he knows it’s important to get it fixed quickly. He’d promised Iwaizumi he’d wait until he’d finished in the shower to turn off the water, and Iwaizumi had promised in turn to be quick.

When he hears the shower shut off upstairs Ushijima heads out into the sun to go into the thin-walled shed hidden out of sight from the main house, shutting off the house’s water supply to make sure the kitchen doesn’t flood. The sun is searing as it beats down on his shoulders, the cicadas growing unbearably loud as he passes close to the bamboo. When he heads inside he sees Iwaizumi coming down the stairs in only a pair of boxers, rubbing at his hair with a towel.

“Come and help me.” It’s not a request – Iwaizumi is used to this by now, and he follows Ushijima into the kitchen without a word, towel still slung about his neck. Iwaizumi leans against the counter as he watches Ushijima crouch, his fingers idly probing through the toolbox. He hands whatever Ushijima needs to him, eventually crouching down beside him; this is when they talk the most, when they’re thinking together. Ushijima’s voice is low and quiet and rich as molasses as they fix that pipe. They finish just after noon when the sun is at its highest, the cicadas by now almost deafening and the heat shimmering off the polished boards of the veranda. Iwaizumi swallows the heat as best he can, going to change into a thin shirt and shorts. Ushijima, he sees, is still wearing trousers, though he can’t think _why._ But then again, Iwaizumi thinks with a little roll of his eyes, it’s Ushijima.

It’s a little confronting to think that Iwaizumi knows him well enough by now to think of something like that.

He returns down the stairs and into the low-ceilinged living room to find it empty. He checks the kitchen to find it empty too, the damp cloth Ushijima had used to swab up the little puddle of water slung over the tap.

Iwaizumi pads barefoot over the tatami and out onto the veranda; the wood is polished and warm from the sun, Three empty cups from the day before sitting by one of the posts and swarming with ants. The breeze from the early morning has died into a quiet, simmering stillness, heat rising from the forest behind the house, from the rattling stalks of the bamboo around the perimeter of the yard.

Sitting down on the edge of the veranda, Iwaizumi lets his toes drag across the grass, his eyes slipping shut as he listens to the trill of he cicadas. They’re funny things: invisible and ubiquitous, a presence never outwardly acknowledged but always known. The sound they make – the screaming – is denser here, denser than in Sendai. Up here, on the gentle curve of the mountains, he can’t hear any traffic. The only sounds are the insects and the whispering of the forest and the distant shouts from the other properties.

“What are you doing?”

Iwaizumi starts violently, a sun-browned fist moving to clutch at his heart as he skids around to see Ushijima lowered into a crouch, looking at him curiously.

“I was thinking.”

“About what?”

Iwaizumi flushes and mumbles, “Cicadas.”

Ushijima lowers himself down beside Iwaizumi, lacing his hands together in his lap as he stares out into the bamboo and the lichen-covered statues nestled between them, lopsided and ancient. His eyes reflect the sun – they almost drink it in, absorbing it and turning it into liquid gold that swims around the pools of his irises.

“I used to catch cicadas a lot when I was a child.”

Iwaizumi blinks. “I did too.”

Ushijima’s head turns, eyes lingering on the bamboo a fraction longer before fixing on Iwaizumi’s face. They’re silent for a moment, just looking, before Iwaizumi’s face cracks open in a smile and he has to turn away, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. The thought of a small Ushijima running around after cicadas – maybe even crawling through the bamboo – is more enchanting than it is funny (but it’s still funny).

“Did you catch them with a net?”

“No. I would use my hands.”

Again, Iwaizumi blinks. “With your… hands? Your bare hands?”

Ushijima nods in reply and Iwaizumi’s chest suddenly tightens.

“Teach me.”

Ushijima, after a brief pause, agrees, and something changes in him. Iwaizumi follows him when he stands up, hands tucked into his pockets, and leads Iwaizumi past the clusters of bamboo and old statues to a gate he hadn’t even known existed. It’s tucked away behind the pond at the very back of the garden, old and rickety with wide slats held precariously together by rust nails and hinges that rattle a worrying amount. Beyond the gate is a narrow path trodden out through the grass by the passage of many, many feet. Unlike Ushijima’s yard, this grass is rough and reaches Iwaizumi’s knees, kissing at his skin as he passes.

The forest yawns open like a black, endless mouth. It takes Iwaizumi’s breath away no matter how many times he’s seen it before – he’s never seen it up close. He feels as though he’s standing at the lip of the ocean; it’s a sudden moment of divine judgment, and if it wasn’t for the light touch of Ushijima’s hand at the small of his back, he probably would’ve stood there for hours.

Once inside the dense sea of trees, the air is cool and close and sweet with the summer rain that still clings to the undersides of the foliage. It’s full of animals Iwaizumi can sense but not see.

The path’s narrowness has forced them into single-file, and Iwaizumi wants nothing more than to reach out and take hold of the back of Ushijima’s shirt to act as a guide as he looks around. But, he figures comfortably, there’ll be time enough for exploring later. The further they walk the louder the screaming of the cicadas become; the trees grow closer, the light from the summer sky turning to a watery jade glimmer. It casts long shadows against the bracken, shadows that dance over Ushijima’s shoulders and his perspiring neck, and Iwaizumi draws close enough to him that he can smell the muted scent of Ushijima’s shampoo and laundry detergent.

Ushijima pushes aside a few low-hanging branches, allowing them to both pass into a small clearing; the canopy remains closed-in, the foliage hanging low enough to gently brush over the top of Ushijima’s hair, but the trunks part in a pocket of space where the bracken thins and gives way to solid, warm earth. The cicadas are deafening – Iwaizumi can’t see them individually but he’s surrounded by a shimmer, as though the air is moving as thick as water around them.

Ushijima touches a hand silently to his elbow, imploring him to watch and to stay very still. Slowly, Ushijima approaches one of the tall, thin trees with silvery bark and translucent leaves. His shirt pulls taut as he raises his arms up into the leaves and Iwaizumi cranes his neck to follow with his eyes. All of Ushijima’s movements are astoundingly delicate, his hands steady and his eyes focused. Iwaizumi jumps when Ushijima suddenly closes his hands soundlessly together, relaxing and bringing his cupper palms down again and approaching Iwaizumi. They bend their heads together, Ushijima holding his hands between them and gently opening his fingers; inside his palms sit two small cicadas, hopping around each other, their exoskeletons glimmering as green as the leaves.

“What do you do once you catch them?” Iwaizumi asks in a voice no more than a whisper.

“I let them go.” The cicadas stay for a few moments, as though gathering their wits about them, before taking flight back into the tree they’d been taken from. Ushijima watches them go, his face soft and expression gentle; Iwaizumi has noticed the very particular expression Ushijima wears when looking at things he loves. Nature, his dogs, even Oikawa when he’s sprawled out in a dead sleep. It’s always that same expression, the one with the softened brows and swimming eyes and relaxed jaw.

Iwaizumi’s gut clenches as he wonders if Ushijima ever looks at him like that, too. _He looks at you funny, but you never notice!_ Oikawa had told him once with a smug little smile on his face. Iwaizumi’s gut tightens.

“Did you never try catching them in your hands?” Ushijima asks, his attention still focused on the tree into which his cicadas disappeared. Iwaizumi, a little embarrassed, shook his head.

“No, I always used a net. I didn’t think it was possible – they’re too small and too fast.”

Ushijima finally turns to look at him; he looks so out of place, standing with stooped shoulders surrounded by trees – and yet he’s never looked more at home.

There’s a strange knocking sound that erupts from all around them – it’s masked by the cicadas at first, but as the shimmering green light begins to weaken Iwaizumi realizes it to be rain that blew in from the ocean; as the rain hits the canopy it rings strangely, like the sound of shrine bells or the rush of the ocean.

“Try it,” Ushijima encourages him as the rain begins to fall into his hair, darkening it; he reaches up and swipes away a rivulet tracking down his temple with the back of his hand.

Iwaizumi is doubtful, but even so he begins to glance around – he can see a shimmer in a tree just to his right, in the hollow of a knot in the trunk. As he draws closer he can see the insects more clearly and he reaches out, hands not nearly as steady as Ushijima’s had been –

He misses. The cicadas flee before he even has a chance to move. He tries again, but each time he fails his face grows even hotter with embarrassment and he soon finds himself standing in the middle of the clearing, flushed, fists balled at his sides.

“I can’t do it,” he forces out from between his teeth. “I’m not good at this.”

Ushijima says nothing. He just looks at him, appraising him with those warm, sharp eyes. The rain has grown heavier, the sun still shining, their clothes growing damp. “I –,”

“Sh,” Ushijima hushes him, drawing close and holding a finger to his lips as his eyes arch around them, up towards the mossy canopy and the petals of peeling bark clinging to the trees. Iwaizumi’s breath stops in his throat as though it’s set on obeying Ushijima’s command over his own. A cold drop of rain falls to the back of his neck, rolling down beneath the collar of his shirt and between the muscles that brace his spine. “They like the rain.”

Ushijima speaks of the cicadas as though they’re children; he speaks of them as though they can hear each word he says.

The shrieks of the cicadas are accompanied by the thwarted fall of the rain and together they form some strange kind of symphony; it’s not music, not by a long shot, but the harmony still rings around them all the same.

“Close your eyes,” Ushijima tells him, and he does. He can feel the other man move closer, hovering just behind him and closing his warm hands around Iwaizumi’s wrists, extending his arms until his palms face each other, stretched before him. Ushijima stands behind him like a shadow, his hands hovering cupped outside Iwaizumi’s. He can feel a tingle blossom in the middle of each palm; the air buzzes around him and each raindrop becomes clear as it tumbles from leaf to leaf, the gentle brush of the cicadas’ wings louder than ever. Ushijima is closer, now, _warmer_ , his breath kissing the damp nape of Iwaizumi’s neck. Iwaizumi breathes in deep, inhaling the freshness of the forest and the taste of the rain; he takes the earth into his body and he’s suddenly connected to everything, blessed with an awareness he didn’t know he was capable of. Ushijima speaks from behind him. “Now try it.”

Iwaizumi opens his eyes.

There’s a cicada cradled in the curling bark of a tree a little to his left; it’s young, still green and shimmering. They had been Iwaizumi’s favourite kind of cicadas during his childhood, but he’d never managed to catch many, since they’re smaller and faster than the others. He approaches it slowly, hands held out and feet making no noise on the bracken beneath him. Ushijima remains standing, watching, as still and silent as the lichened statues.

It happens a lot slower than Iwaizumi expects. His palms – which he’d previously thought were so clumsy and large – close around the insect as delicately as they would a rose petal. He scoops the piece of bark away and the cicada begins to panic in his hands, flitting about and hitting the impenetrable wall of his fingers each time. Iwaizumi lets out a breath and holds his hands close to his chest, feeling the cicada come to a stop in the crease of his palms.

“Open your hands.”

Ushijima is quite unexpectedly behind him, his dark hands curled around Iwaizumi’s and his chin on his shoulder. The rain makes his earthy smell even more intense and Iwaizumi can do nothing but breathe it in. He gently opens his hands, flinching, expecting the cicada to take flight as soon as he does; the insect, however, remains in Iwaizumi’s hands and totters around in a few little circles before shaking its wings and trilling a couple of times. Iwaizumi hardly dares to breathe. Behind him, Ushijima smiles, pressing the gentle curve of his lips into Iwaizumi’s shoulder as the cicada lifts itself and vanishes from sight.

 

* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi twists up his wet shirt, spinning it and snapping it through the air so it cracks across the small of Ushijima’s back; he yelps, loud and raw, starting and turning around with one hand pressed to the red lash across his skin. Iwaizumi grins; he loves eliciting reactions like these. When Ushijima sees Iwaizumi’s face, his anger vanishes and instead his brows pull low over his eyes and he uses his own damp shirt as a vice, slinging it around Iwaizumi’s neck and yanking him in close. “You ought to stop doing that.”

“What, are you gonna make me?”

It had meant to be a harmless tease; two young men poking a little fun. But what with the steam rising from their bodies and the thick, close humidity, Iwaizumi can’t help but get a little feverish. He takes Ushijima’s face roughly between his hands and leans in to drag his tongue along Ushijima’s jaw, still tasting the sweetness of the rain and the forest on his skin. The shirt around his neck slackens as Ushijima winds his arms around him, deepening both kiss and touch.

“I wanna do it,” Iwaizumi breathes against Ushijima’s lips, his hands dropping down to push against the man’s chest, shoving him down onto the tatami mats. Ushijima lands on his back , looking up as Iwaizumi strips off his shorts. He lets Iwaizumi work off his own trousers, his legs glistening only slightly from rain and sweat.

“We should dry off –,”

“No.”

Iwaizumi silences him with a kiss as he climbs over him, straddling his hips and sitting up straight again, both hands braced on Ushijima’s broad chest. Ushijima’s hands wander up his thighs and as much as Iwaizumi loves the touch, he smacks them away. “No touching.”

It’s a game he likes to play, especially with Ushijima. He forbids Ushijima to touch him, knowing just how much it drives him insane; Ushijima balls his fists at his side, the muscles in his shoulders turning as he does so. Iwaizumi lets his weight sink down, then, his tongue stuck between his teeth and the most wicked of grins on his face, watching with delight as Ushijima’s expression tightens, muscles pulling taut, tendons straining in his neck.

By this point in their relationship, Ushijima knows what he has to do in order to touch Iwaizumi when he isn’t allowed to. He suspects that it has something to do with their past rivalry, remnants of the disdain Iwaizumi had used to harbor for him.

“C’mon,” Iwaizumi urges, sucking a breath in through his teeth as a familiar sting coils up his spine; the girth of Ushijima’s cock stretches him out deliciously. They don’t fuck often; usually Oikawa is there to assume that role, but sometimes Iwaizumi likes having Ushijima all to himself like this, to have that _cock_ all to himself. Sometimes he likes to be fucked rather than do the fucking – or at least that’s how he prefers to think about it.

The first time they had sex they were still not entirely familiar with each other. They’d been drunk, stumbling back to Ushijima’s apartment after their exams had ended and they’d gone drinking to celebrate. By the time they made it to the cab their hands were roaming places they shouldn’t have been roaming – at least not in public – and by the time they were in the cab itself their mouths were fastened tightly together, Ushijima’s hand gripping Iwaizumi’s thigh like a lifeline.

They didn’t make it home that night.

Instead, Ushijima had called to the driver in a deliciously gravelly voice, telling him to pull in at the nearest hotel. Neither of them minded the two thousand yen of extra change they accidentally gave the driver, far too distracted by each other, and all Iwaizumi was fully aware of was the painful grip Ushijima had around his upper arm and the heat of his breath against his neck.

The night had passed in a haze of pain and pleasure and the coppery taste of new experiences. When Iwaizumi recollected the fragmented pieces of what had happened the next morning, he’d sunk his head into his pillow, face flushed deep red with embarrassment. But when he’d raised his face to see Ushijima gazing at him, unaffected, he suddenly didn’t feel quite so embarrassed or quite so ashamed. After that they slowly got used to each other, picking themselves apart at the seams more like curious children than anything. There was a delicacy between them that was notably absent between Ushijima and Oikawa; Iwaizumi supposed it was because they were both nervous and anxious. They weren’t guided by blinding lust and instinct like Oikawa and Ushijima had been.

But now it’s come to this – all their awkwardness and butting knees and elbows and blushing faces – with Iwaizumi sat astride Ushijima’s strong hips, fingers shaking on his chest as he tips his head back against the weight of the summer heat and the pleasure building inside him. Iwaizumi unfolds like a butterfly over him, his back bowing and skin glistening in the weak light; the muscles in his chest heave beautifully as he sinks himself down lower and lower onto Ushijima’s cock, feeling the head of it rub and press against his innermost walls. The pressure in his groin is almost unbearable and he feels a little nauseous at the lingering pain of his rim; but Ushijima’s cock catches against his prostate, then, and Iwaizumi very nearly forgets his own name.

Strangely enough, they never really fuck hard. They both prefer to look at each other like a newly discovered angle of an artwork. Their eyes stay locked, staring, but it’s never creepy, or even unsettling. The longer they stare the hotter they get, Ushijima’s hands running appreciatively over Iwaizumi’s strong body, marveling at its form and its hardness and its strength. _His_ strength. He’s so different from Oikawa, from anyone Ushijima has ever even dreamed of sleeping with. But he likes it. A lot.

“Shit,” Iwaizumi gasps out as his hips stutter, breaking their rhythm for a second or two. His head bows forwards, sweat dripping from the very tip of his nose. Ushijima’s fingers twitch with the unbearable urge to touch the man above him, to run his fingers and his tongue over ever square inch of his tongue.

“Let me… touch you.” Ushijima’s voice is embarrassingly broken. “ _Please._ ”

Iwaizumi raises his face enough to look at him, and when he does his eyes are brighter than stars, alive with excitement and titillation at hearing Ushijima say that single, magical word. _Please._

Iwaizumi exhales heavily and nods. He’s already at his limit.

As Ushijima’s strong fingers follow the faint blue veins up the insides of Iwaizumi’s arms, Iwaizumi’s shivers grow more and more violent, the rolling of his hips getting faster and faster as the last pinpricks of pain disappear and are replaced by pleasure enough to drown him. The heat is unbearable, the humidity like an anvil crushing his chest; he’s hot and sticky and the more Ushijima’s cock bruises up over his prostate the easier it is for him to believe that he’s melting right into the floor.

Iwaizumi lets his weight fall forwards, the burning skin of his torso finding that of Ushijima’s, strong hands gripping his thighs to keep him from slipping. “Come inside,” he whispers hoarsely against Ushijima’s cheek. He refuses to open his eyes, instead focusing on the slight roughness of the jaw beneath his lips, the whorl of his ear, the soft strands of his hair. Ushijima’s hands tighten around his thighs and the ace’s hips buck up, accompanied by a faint grunt that Iwaizumi feels rather than hears.

Pleasure bursts up his spine as Ushijima begins to move under him, knowing just which angle Iwaizumi likes best, which parts of his body to touch and to kiss to elicit the best reactions. In any other situation, Iwaizumi would _hate_ the fact that Ushijima can so effectively push his buttons like this – but right now, it’s heaven.

Ushijima’s hands move slowly over his hips and down to his ass, where they curl and _squeeze_ and bring him impossibly closer, their lips open and panting into each other as they move harder, fevered by the pressing heat.

“Enough,” he chokes, his forearm braced against the front of Ushijima’s throat. Ushijima doesn’t seem to notice, though, his hands still trying their best to retain purchase on Iwaizumi’s slippery hips. Iwaizumi’s eyes beg to slip closed, but he can’t bear to tear them away from Ushijima’s pleasure-crumpled face dripping with sweat. He grips the back of Ushijima’s neck and kisses him instead.

He feels Ushijima groaning against his tongue as he cums, holding his stuttering hips still and flush against Iwaizumi’s skin. His mouth slides from Iwaizumi’s and down so his forehead is cradled in the crook of Iwaizumi’s shoulder, breathing hard, his back rising and falling like the breathing of the mountains in the rain.

Iwaizumi’s climax isn’t thunderous. It doesn’t hit him like the flash of lightning that suddenly illuminates the shoji screens, casting a momentary eerie glow over the room. It falls upon him like rain, stealing his breath away with a kiss rather than knocking it clean from his lungs. His navel is suddenly uncomfortably sticky, and he wipes a hand over it. At the merest touch of his hand to his skin he shivers, each pore burning and over-sensitive.

They lie side-by-side on the tatami mats, silent, staring at the papery light fitting in the middle of the ceiling. Iwaizumi wants to fall asleep like this, even though he’s drenched in sweat and various other bodily fluids; there’s nothing quite as comforting as the secure presence of Ushijima beside him, something he’d never thought he’d _ever_ acknowledge. He glances at him; Ushijima’s eyes are shut but Iwaizumi knows he’s not sleeping. Rising onto his elbow, Iwaizumi leans across and kisses him softly on the lips.

“Well…” a melodic voice snakes through the half-darkness, accompanied by the _shh_ of the shōji door sliding open. “Looks like you two have been having a little fun without me.” Oikawa flicks on the lights, rolling his head onto his shoulder and pouting a little. “Rude!”

It’s not like he minds, though. In fact, he secretly encourages moments like these between Ushijima and Iwaizumi, though he isn’t entirely sure why. Maybe it’s to let them grow more used to each other, closer, to figure out the little nooks and crannies of each other that Oikawa is already aware of. In a way, leaving them alone with each other is like watching the extended unwrapping of a gift; he sees it, too, in the little touches of Ushijima’s fingers against the back of Iwaizumi’s hand, or the small glances shared between them. Nothing about those things make Oikawa feel shut out, surprisingly – they’re not hidden from him, and instead of growing insanely jealous of the shyly blooming affection between the two of his boyfriends (two! Two boyfriends! Oikawa still reels at the thought), he still leeches off the warmth of it. The love (does he dare call it love? Hesitantly, he believes it is) shared between Ushijima and Iwaizumi still seems to be shared with Oikawa himself, even if he’s not even there with them.

Which, to him, is strange. But it’s not unwelcome, and certainly not unpleasant.

Oikawa sits down on the floor by their heads, administering one hand to each crown of dark hair, weaving his fingers between the strands and noting the difference between them. Like cats, Ushijima and Iwaizumi lean into his touch, both of their eyes closed. Nobody says anything. The only sound in the room is that of their soft breathing, and the gentle hissing of the rain.


End file.
